The modern Budrum. A celebrated city of Asia Minor, stood in the southwestern part of Caria, opposite to the island of Cos. It was founded by Dorians from Troezen. With the rest of the coast of Asia Minor it fell under the dominion of the Persians, at an early period of whose rule Lygdamis made himself tyrant of the city, and founded a dynasty which lasted for some generations. His daughter Artemisia assisted Xerxes in his expedition against Greece.

Halicarnassus was celebrated for the Mausoleum, a magnificent edifice which Artemisia II. built as a tomb for her husband Mausolus (B.C. 352), and which was adorned with the works of the most eminent Greek sculptors of the age. (See Architectura.) Fragments of these sculptures, [p. 765] which were discovered built into the walls of the citadel of Budrum, are now in the British Museum.

Halicarnassus was the birthplace of the historians Herodotus and Dionysius. See Newton, Discoveries at Halicarnassus (1862-63). (Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898)