ABOUT BODRUM

(The Castle of st. Peter in Bodrum, ancient Halicarcassus.)

Bodrum, the ancient Flalicarnassus or Halikarnassos in Greek, is today a pleasant vacation resort overlooking a charming bay admired by tourists and visitors for the purity and transparency of its limpid waters, for the amenities of its sandy beaches and the local microclimate that is particularly inviting and felicitious. The coastline of the picturesque gulf is varied by charming small peninsulas while the silhouettes of some of the Aegean islands stand out on the horizon. According to Herodotus, the most famous son of Halicarnassus, the city was founded by Dorian colonists who later instituted the Dorian League. From the middle of the 6th century B.C. on, Halicarnassus was governed by the Persians, but it rebelled and adhered to the league of cities which had taken up arms against the oppressor. Around the middle of the 4th century B.C., with the advent of the reign of Mausolus, Halicarnassus and all of Caria experienced the period of their greatest splendor. When the sovereign
died, his wife and sister rose to the throne, and decreed the construction of the imposing mausoleum which was counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and of which only a few fragmentary traces survive. At the same time Artemisia gained possession of Rhodes, suffocating the ambitious pretensions for conquest of its inhabitants. In the second half of the 4th century B.C. Halicarnassus was ravaged by Alexander the Great and its inevitable decline began then, putting it at the mercy of the emerging powers. Archaeological excavations by various English specialists in the mid-l9th century brought to light only fragments of reliefs and various statues. Nowadays practically nothing remains of the majestic monumental structure which aroused the adm'ıration of Pliny, who has left us an accurate description. The Mausoleum (after Mausolus to whom it was dedicated) was built by Queen Artemisia around 350 B.C. The famous architect Pytheos, who had also designed the Temple of Athena in Priene, was called in to prepare the plans. The sculpture and fine reliefs in the friezes on the facade were commissioned from the most famous artists of the time, including Scopas, Bryaxis, Timotheus and Leocares. The monumental complex rose up on a high podium, with a row of Ionic columns supporting a stepped pyramidal roof crowned by a marble quadriga.

The majestic monument stood intact until the l2th century, but was partially destroyed by an earthquake in the l4th century. Its destruction continued in the same century when it was used as a quarry for the construction of the fortress which now rises from the waters of the bay. A few fragments of the frieze and the statues of Artemisia and Mausolus, once on the roof, driving the quadriga, are now to be seen in the British Museum in London. In the Marine Museum of Bodrum, a recently discovered sculptured panel, once part of the frieze of the famous Mausoleum, is on view together with a number of objects found at the bottom of the sea, vases dating to the 9th-8th century B.C. and other Dorian material including a terracotta sarcophagus (9th cent. B.C.). The so-called Castle of St. Peter stands in the center of the harbor and is one of the well-known features in the landscape of this pleasant town. The construction I of its powerful glacis was begun by the Knights ` .

Hospitalers in the l5th century, using materials taken fram the ruins of the Mausoleum. In 1523 the fortress once and for all fell into the hands of the Turks.