 |
Bodrum / Turkey |
| |
|
 |
This is a place that has been knocked
about a bit. Halicarnassus was founded
by the Dorians early in the first
millenium BC. The Hexapolis, a league of
six cities, originally included
Halicarnassus but it was expelled for
general uncoolness or something similar.
The Persians managed the place with the
help of native Carian dynasts including
the the formidable Artemisia the elder
who, while commanding a ship at the
battle of Salamis in 480 BC, impressed
Xerxes with her naval prowess. |
|
|
|
The Persians dropped out of the picture
for a while after their defeat but in
386 BC they were back. Their second
satrap in Halicarnassus, Hecatomnus,
founded a dynasty that held the reins
for 50 years and imported Greek
craftsmen and thinkers. The Hecatomids
included in their number one Mausolos
who did so well for himself, building
palaces and things like that, that when
he died his grateful poulace erected a
monument in his name, a mausoleum. After
a bit of a struggle the city fell to
Alexander (what didn't?) in about 334
and things were fairly calm for a few
years but then the whole region went to
hell in a handbasket when Alexander
died. The Roman Empire calmed things
down again and under the Byzantines
things were fairly relaxed until the
11th Century when the Turks arrived for
the first of several periods of
occupation that would mirror the decline
of the fortunes of Byzantium. Suleyman
the magnificent captured the city from
the hands of the Knights Hospitalier who
constructed the Castle of St. Peter,
partly using stone ramsacked from the
Mausoleum. In the 18th Century Catherine
the Great's fleet attacked from the sea
in an attempt to support a Greek
rebellion. The French tried to land an
expeditionary force during the first
World War and Italians ocpied the town
in 1919. Ataturks Republican forces
expelled them and things have been
increasingly Turkish ever since. |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
