Today a popular holiday resort with a yacht harbor, hillside villas and palm-lined streets, Bodrum was known as Halikarnossos that, in the time of Mausollus, became one of the great cities of the Mediterranean.
Mausollus? father had ruled most of Caria and been recognized by the Persians as a satrap of the province. Though Mausollus continued to pay tribute to the Persians he has for practical purposes an independent ruler, controlling not only the hinterland but also most of the Greek cities of the coast together with neighboring island. The success of his policy depended on a fleet as well as on diplomacy and Halikarnossos provided him with a good harbor as well as a worthy site for his capital, which then enjoyed a prosperity it had never know before.
In later ages the city?s principal claim to fame was as the site of one the Seven Wonders of the World the magnificent sculptured tomb of Mausollus. But even this was shattered and forgotten when, in 1404, the Knights of St John began the construction of the almost impregnable Castle of St Peter to serve as an outpost of their headquarters at Rhodes. In 1522
