HISTORY OF BODRUM (ANCİENT HALİCARNASUS)-3

After the conquest to Sardis by the Persian king Cyrus, the western Anatolian cities fell rapidly under Persian rule. In the cities they conquered the persians put the power dynasties who would rule in their interest.

During Xerxes’ campaing againts the Greeks (around 480 B.C.), the daughter of the tyrant Lygdamis, Artemisia I was the ruler of Halicarnassus. Herodotus has provided as with much information on Artemisia. He writes that she joined with the Persiansto fights againts the Greeks, and, also ruled over the islands of Cos, Nisyros and Calydnos. At Salamis she advised Xerxes not to risk a naval battle with the Greeks.However as the king had follewed the wish of the majority, she joined the battle in person and fought with so much prowes at the king exclaimed ’’My man have shown themselves women and my women men’’. Heredotus has not writen the name of her housband, but she must surely have taken over the rule after his death.

Following Artemisia’s death, first her son Psyindalis and later her grandson Lygdamis II became tyrants of Halicarnassus. Psyindalis who had a weak character did not archieve anything of much importance. Lygdamis II, on the other hand, exerted a despotic rule. It is said that Herodotus, forced to leave his native city because of Lygdamis’ cruelty, later returned and helped to the overthrow of the dynasty. Political strife, however, made him leave the city once again.

Halicarnassus took part in the lonian revolution, and around 486 B.C. joined the Attica-Delos Confederacy. The revenues it paid to the conferadetion were less than those paid by the cities of Termara and Pedasa.This is a evidence that Halicarnassus was a comparatively small city about middle of the V. Century B.C. In 404 B.C. Sparta put end to the confederation, and Halicarnassus for a while might have enjoyed democratic rule. In the beginnig of the IV. Century B.C. the Persians were again in power. With the treaty between Athens and Persia known as the ‘’king’s Peace’’, the cities of Asia went under totel Persian control.The Persians, once more, divied Anatolia into regions called satrapies. The rule of the Carian region was given to the Hekatomnos dynasty settled in Mylasa.