Ancient era Halicarnassus (, or
Alikarnassós; ), was an
ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in
Turkey. Halicarnassus was founded by
Dorian Greeks, and the figures on its coins, such as the head of
Medusa,
Athena,
Poseidon, and the
trident, support the statement that the mother cities were
Troezen and
Argos. The inhabitants appear to have accepted
Anthes, a son of Poseidon, as their legendary founder, as mentioned by
Strabo, and were proud of the title
Antheadae. The Carian name for Halicarnassus has been tentatively identified with Alosδkarnosδ in inscriptions. In an early period, Halicarnassus was a member of the
Doric Hexapolis, which included
Kos,
Cnidus,
Lindos,
Kameiros, and
Ialysus, but it was expelled from the league when one of its citizens, Agasicles, took home the prize tripod that he had won in the Triopian games instead of dedicating it according to custom to the Triopian
Apollo. In the early 5th century, Halicarnassus was under the sway of
Artemisia I of Caria (also known as Artemesia of Halicarnassus), who made herself famous as a naval commander at the
battle of Salamis. Little is known of Pisindalis, her son and successor; but
Lygdamis, the
tyrant of Halicarnassus, who next attained power, is notorious for having the poet
Panyasis put to death and forcing
Herodotus, possibly the most well-known Halicarnassian, to leave his native city ().
Persian rule The city later fell under
Persian rule. Under the Persians, it was the capital city of the
satrapy of
Caria, the region that long afterward constituted its hinterland and of which it was the principal port. Its strategic location ensured that the city enjoyed considerable autonomy. Archaeological evidence from the period, such as the recently discovered
Salmakis (
Kaplankalesi) Inscription, now in
Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, attests to the particular pride its inhabitants had developed.
Mausolus ruled Caria from here, nominally on behalf of the Persians but practically independently, for much of his reign from 377 to 353 BC. When he died in 353 BC,
Artemisia II of Caria, who was both his sister and his widow, employed the
ancient Greek architects Satyros,
Pythis, and the
sculptors Bryaxis,
Scopas,
Leochares, and
Timotheus to build a monument and a tomb, known as
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, for him. The word "
mausoleum" derives from the structure of this tomb. It was a temple-like structure decorated with reliefs and statuary on a massive base. Today only the foundations and a few pieces of sculpture remain.
Hellenistic and Roman periods Alexander the Great laid
siege to the city after his arrival in the Carian lands and together with his ally, Queen
Ada of Caria, captured it after fighting in 334 BC. After Alexander's death, the rule of the city passed to
Antigonus I (311 BC),
Lysimachus (after 301 BC), and the
Ptolemies (281–197 BC) and was briefly an independent kingdom until 129 BC, when it came under Roman rule. A series of earthquakes destroyed much of the city, as well as the great Mausoleum, while repeated pirate attacks from the Mediterranean wreaked further havoc on the area. By the time of the early Christian
Byzantine era, when Halicarnassus was an important bishopric, there was little left of the shining city of Mausolus.
Medieval era coat of arms|alt=|leftCrusader Knights arrived in 1402 and used the remains of the Mausoleum as a quarry to build the still impressively standing
Bodrum Castle (
Castle of Saint Peter), a well-preserved example of late Crusader architecture in the eastern Mediterranean. The
Knights Hospitaller (
Knights of St. John) were given permission to build it by the Ottoman sultan
Mehmed I after
Tamerlane destroyed their previous fortress in
İzmir's inner bay. In 1522,
Suleiman the Magnificent conquered the base of the Crusader knights on the island of
Rhodes, who then relocated first briefly to
Sicily and later permanently to
Malta, leaving the Castle of Saint Peter and Bodrum to the
Ottoman Empire.
Modern era Bodrum was a quiet town of fishermen and
sponge divers until the early 20th century. From 1867 until 1922, it was part of the
Aidin Vilayet of the
Ottoman Empire. In the 1923
population exchange, the
Greeks of Bodrum settled in
Nea Alikarnassos, Crete in exchange for
Muslims of
Crete and
Greek Muslims. In her book
Bodrum, Fatma Mansur points out that the presence of a large community of bilingual
Cretan Turks, coupled with the conditions of free trade and access to the southern
Dodecanese islands until 1935, made the town less provincial. The fact that traditional agriculture was not a very rewarding activity in the rather dry peninsula also prevented the formation of a class of large landowners. Bodrum has no notable history of political or religious extremism. A first nucleus of intellectuals started to form after the 1950s around the writer
Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, who first came here in exile two decades previously and was charmed by the town to the point of adopting the
pen name Halikarnas Balıkçısı ('The Fisherman of Halicarnassus'). ==Geography==