Mausolus ( or , Mauśoλ) was a ruler of Caria (377–353 BCE) and a satrap of the Achaemenid Empire. He enjoyed the status of king or dynast by virtue of the powerful position created by his father Hecatomnus ( ), who was the first satrap of Caria from the hereditary Hecatomnid dynasty. Alongside Caria, Mausolus also ruled Lycia and parts of Ionia and the Dodecanese islands. He is best known for his monumental tomb and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the construction of which has traditionally been ascribed to his wife and sister Artemisia.

Name

Mausolus' name is only known directly in Greek ( or ). It is clearly of Carian origin, though, and would have been written as *𐊪𐊠𐊲𐊸𐊫𐊦 (*Mauśoλ) or similar. This is a compound name perhaps meaning "much blessed". The first part, *Ma-, may mean "much", similar to the same word in Hieroglyphic Luwian. They were also depicted alongside one another in a statue group from Caunos. Whether Mausolus held any real or ceremonial office before the period of his reign proper, however, is speculative.]]

Mausolus became satrap when his father Hecatomnus died in 377/6 BCE. He ruled alongside his wife, who was also his sister, Artemisia (known as Artemisia II to avoid confusion with the earlier Artemisia I Lygdamis). Because the two had no children, and incest of this type was not otherwise known in Caria, it is thought that their unusual marriage was entirely symbolic.

Revolt of the Satraps

Mausolus participated in the Revolt of the Satraps, a long and complex affair in which many satraps in the west of the Achaemenid Empire rebelled against Artaxerxes II Memnon, mostly during the 360s BCE. The Revolt of the Satraps, also called the Great Revolt, was not a coordinated affair, but consisted of multiple separate rebellions throughout Anatolia. Mausolus primarily participated on the side of Artaxerxes, although Greek sources say that he also briefly rebelled against him.

Diodorus Siculus includes Mausolus in his list of satraps who rebelled against Artaxerxes II. According to Xenophon, Mausolus was allegedly persuaded to abandon the siege by Agesilaus, whom Mausolus and Tachos of Egypt provided an escort to escape safely.

Diodorus also tells us that Mausolus and Autophradates, who secretly did not pursue Ariobarzanes, assisted Orontes of Mysia in his later rebellion in 362 BCE. Unlike Tachos or Agesilaus, however, Mausolus and Artemisia are mostly absent from narratives of Orontes' revolt, and there is no evidence that they took any concrete action against Artaxerxes II. After the time of Harpagus, however, Achaemenid presence in Lycia was minimal and contested by the Delian League. The country came to be ruled by a series of minor dynasts, such as Kuprlli and Kheriga of Xanthos, Erbbina of Telmessos, and Arppakhu of Phellos. Pericles' domination of an independent Lycia was ended by the Autophradates, the satrap of Lydia, at the end of the great revolt . Theodectes of Phaselis, a tragic poet, wrote a play called Mausolus to honour the satrap at his funeral. The Athenians subsequently formed what is called the Second Athenian League (in contrast to the earlier Delian League) as a counterbalance to Spartan hegemony. Among the Greek communities which founded this alliance in 378 BCE were Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium. All three rebelled against Athens in 357 BCE, after the Athenians had begun to collect financial contributions (syntaxeis) from their allies and established an aggressive colony (a cleruchy) on Samos in the 360s BCE.

Demosthenes described the outbreak of the Social War is his speech On the Liberty of the Rhodians: "We were charged by the Chians, Byzantines and Rhodians with plotting against them, and that was why they concerted the last war against us; but ... Mausolus [was] the prime mover and instigator in the business". Although the precise causes of the Social War are obscure, it may be the case that Mausolus himself incited it in order to expand his sphere of influence into the neighbouring Greek islands of the Dodecanese.

Mausolus also invaded parts of Ionia and controlled other

at undetermined points in his reign. As well as their new capital at Halicarnassus, Mausolus and Artemisia had considerable control over the other Greek cities on the coast of Caria, such as Iasos, Miletus, and Cnidus. He supposedly deceived the people of Mylasa by telling them that Artaxerxes II Memnon was about to attack the unwalled city; after the local elites gave much money to Mausolus so that he could build walls for Mylasa, he told them that omens prevented him from providing anything. The city was not attacked and Mausolus kept his citizens' funds.

Mausolus' hyparch Condalos was also authoritarian, according to the Economics. While collecting money for Mausolus, Condalos noted that the people of Lycia wore their hair long, unlike the Carians. He told his Lycian subjects that Artaxerxes demanded hair to make wigs (προκομία) for his horses. Mausolus therefore demanded that the Lycians shave their heads and send him their hair. If the Lycians did not want to shave their heads, they could pay their Carian governors in money instead of hair, and Mausolus could buy hair from the Greeks instead. The entire thing was a sham. No hair was sent anywhere, but Condalos and Mausolus made a lot of money. The most dramatic is from 355/4 BCE, late in Mausolus' reign, when he survived an assassination attempt by disaffected subjects during the royal procession at the yearly festival at Labraunda. Nonetheless, Iasos still punished a series of unknown conspirators against Mausolus in the 360s BCE, putting their property to auction. Halicarnassus had historically been a Greek colony with a sizeable native population of Carians and Leleges. The Hecatomnids built themselves a palace on the promontory of Zephyrion, next to the older Temple of Apollo, which has since been built over by the medieval Castle of St Peter.

The synoecism of Halicarnassus may have been inspired by the earlier synoecism of Rhodes, when the three major Greek cities of the island (Ialysus, Camirus, and Lindus) came together the found the city of Rhodes as their capital in . Rhodes and Halicarnassus had close ties. Both claimed mythic Dorian ancestry (although the people of Halicarnassus spoke Ionian Greek) and both cities were allied within the Doric Hexapolis in the Archaic period.

Another former island member of the Doric Hexapolis, Cos, underwent synoecism shortly after Halicarnassus.

'Hellenisation' and the Ionian Renaissance

Mausolus embraced Hellenic culture to an extent. It is debated whether Caria underwent "Hellenisation", "Carianisation", or a complex combination of the two (e.g. creolisation), under his watch.

All the original construction at Halicarnassus was distinctive of the so-called Ionian Renaissance, which the Hecatomnids sponsored throughout their territories, and which continued in the early Hellenistic Period at sites such as Priene. Many cities and religious centres in and around Caria bear features of the Ionian Renaissance following direct sponsorship by Mausolus and his family.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

thumb|Model of the [[Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, at the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology.]]

Mausolus is best known by his monumental tomb: the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Tradition maintains that it was erected and named for him by order of his wife and sister Artemisia after his death. The tomb was only finished after her death. It is likely that construction began while Mausolus was still alive, and that he oversaw it alongside Artemisia.

The tomb was famous even in antiquity. Although the Mausoleum () was named for Mausolus, the term mausoleum has come to be used generically for any grand above-ground tomb. This was true in antiquity; Martial used the term in reference to the Mausoleum of Augustus (died AD 14). Antipater of Sidon listed the Mausoleum as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The site of the Mausoleum and a few remains can still be seen in the Turkish town of Bodrum (ancient Halicarnassus). The majority of surviving sculptural elements are now kept in the British Museum, where they were taken by Charles Thomas Newton in the 1850s. Modern excavations of the site of the Mausoleum, as with other archaeological features of ancient Halicarnassus at Bodrum, have been led by the Danish Archaeological Project in conjunction with the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology.

Death

Mausolus died shortly after the failed assassination attempt at Labraunda. Diodorus Siculus tells us that he died in 353/2 BCE. Modern consensus agrees with this date, in part because Mausolus was known to have participated in the Social War (357–355 BCE), but had died by the time Demosthenes wrote his speech On the Liberty of the Rhodians (351 BCE). Archaeological evidence suggests that worship of Mausolus continued until approximately the mid-2nd century BCE.

Artemisia threw a lavish funeral for Mausolus, including games and ceremonies, in which many distinguished Greeks participated, many of whom were students of Isocrates from Greek cities within the Hecatomnid sphere of influence. This may have been Isocrates of Apollonia, rather than the more famous Isocrates of Athens, who would have been very old at the time. After he died, his sister-wife Artemisia ruled alone for a short period before she herself died (353351 BCE). She was then succeeded by her brother and sister Idrieus and Ada, who were themselves married. There is no evidence that Artemisia was ever formally a satrap of the Achaemenid Empire, rather than just a local dynast. Only the men of the Hekatomnid family were ever referred to as satraps, as far as we know. So, although Artemisia succeeded Mausolus in real terms, his successor to the office of satrap was probably his brother Idrieus.

Centuries after the death of Mausolus, Lucian of Samosata wrote a dialogue between the deceased satrap and the philosopher Diogenes the Cynic, conversing in the afterlife. Although Mausolus ruled widely as satrap, was rich in his lifetime, and left behind a magnificent tomb in Halicarnassus, Diogenes taunts him, as they both have nothing after their deaths.

References

Bibliography

  • Simon Hornblower: Mausolus, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1982
  • Livius, Mausolus by Jona Lendering
  • Caria