Halicarnassus retained a monarchical system of government at a time when most other Greek city states had long since rid themselves of their kings.

Zephyria was the original name of the settlement, and the present site of the great Castle of St. Peter built by the Knights of Rhodes in 1404 AD.

[1] However, in the course of time, the island topographically united with the mainland, and the city was extended to combine with the existing Salmacis, an older town of the native Leleges and Carians,[2] and site of the later citadel.

[5] The founding of Halicarnassus is debated among various traditions; but they agree in the main point as to its being a Dorian colony, and the figures on its coins, such as the head of Medusa, Athena or Poseidon, or 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 of Antheadae.

Artemisia's grandson Lygdamis II of Halicarnassus, is notorious for having put to death the poet Panyasis and causing Herodotus, possibly the best known Halicarnassian, to leave his native city (c. 457 BC).

And on one side of the harbor they built a massive fortified palace for Mausolus, positioned to have clear views out to sea and inland to the hills—places from where enemies could attack.

When he died in 353 BC, his wife, sister and successor, Artemisia II of Caria, began construction of a magnificent tomb for him and herself on a hill overlooking the city.

According to Pliny the Elder the craftsmen continued to work on the tomb after the death of their patron, "considering that it was at once a memorial of his own fame and of the sculptor's art," finishing it in 350 BC.

On the death of Pixodarus in 335 BC his son-in-law, a Persian named Orontobates, received the satrapy of Caria from Darius III of Persia.

[2] Baroque artist Johann Elias Ridinger depicted the several stages of siege and taking of the place in a huge copper engraving as one of only two known today from his Alexander set.

The site is now occupied in part by the town of Bodrum; but the ancient walls can still be traced round nearly all their circuit, and the position of several of the temples, the Theatre of Halicarnassus, and other public buildings can be fixed with certainty.

[2] The ruins of the mausoleum were recovered sufficiently by the 1857 excavations of Charles Newton to enable a fairly complete restoration of its design to be made.

The original one, made by Newton and Pullan, is in error in many respects; and that of Oldfield, though to be preferred for its lightness (the mausoleum was said anciently to be "suspended in mid-air").