Mausolus

Mausolus (more correctly Maussollus), was satrap and practically ruler of Caria (377-353 BC).

The part he took in the revolt against Artaxerxes Mnemon, his conquest of a great part of Lycia, Ionia and of several of the Greek islands, his co-operation with the Rhodians and their allies in the war against Athens, and the removal of his capital from Mylasa, the ancient seat of the Carian kings, to Halicarnassus are the leading facts of his history.

He is best known from the tomb erected for him by his widow Artemisia. The architects Satyrus and Pythis, and the sculptors Scopas, Leochares, Bryaxis and Timotheus, finished the work after her death. The name of the "Mausoleum" came to be used generically for any grand tomb. Its site and a few remains can still be seen in the Turkish town of Budrum.

An inscription discovered at Mylasa (Böckh, Inscr. gr. ii. 2691 c.) details the punishment of certain conspirators who had made an attempt upon his life at a festival in a temple at Labranda in 353.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.