Various traditions debate the founding of Halicarnassus, situated on the Gulf of Kos near the modern town of Bodrum, Turkey, but they agree in the main point as to its being a Dorian colony.

The figures on its coins, such as the head of Medusa, Athena and Poseidon, or the trident, support the statement that the mother cities were Troezen and Argos.

The inhabitants appear to have accepted as their legendary founder Anthes, mentioned by Strabo, and were proud of the title of Antheadae.

Halicarnassus is planted among six Carian towns: Theangela, Sibde, Medmasa, Euranium, Pedasa or Pedasum, and Telmissus.

These with Myndus and Synagela (or Syagela or Souagela) constitute the eight Lelegian towns.

Dorians from Troezen in the Peloponnese are the traditional founders of Halicarnassus, situated on the Gulf of Cerameicus in Caria. (Herodotus, a Halicarnassian, relates that in early times the city participated in the Dorian festival of Apollo at Triopion, but its literature and culture appear thoroughly Ionic.)

Among the islands and coast of southwestern Anatolia, six (later five) Dorian cities—Kos, Halicarnassus, and Cnidus, along with the Rhodian cities of Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus—belong to the Dorian Hexapolis (league of six cities) by which the Greeks protect themselves in Asia Minor.

Various traditions debate the founding of Halicarnassus but agree in the main point as to its being a Dorian colony, and the figures on its coins, such as the head of Medusa, Athena and Poseidon, or the trident, support the statement that the mother cities were Troezen and Argos.

The inhabitants appear to have accepted as their legendary founder Anthes, mentioned by Strabo, and were proud of the title of Antheadae.

Halicarnassus, formerly one of the six cities of the Doric or Dorian Hexapolis before its expulsion, comes under Persian domination around 540, as does the island of Chios.

Karka (Caria) is added in the last administrative division of satrapies under Darius; apparently, it has been brought under stronger control because of its support for the Greek cause.

It can never have been in much doubt that a combination of Persia and Sparta could win the war easily, even after the particular failures of trust and understanding in 411.

However, Tissaphernes, fearing that a complete victory of Sparta over Athens in the Peloponnesian War will endanger Persian interests, has supplied only limited assistance to his ally.

As a result, when the Persian king Darius II in 407 decides to support Sparta fully, Tissaphernes is replaced as commander in chief in Asia Minor and as satrap of Lydia, Phrygia, and Cappadocia by Darius' son, Cyrus the Younger, and his influence is limited to the satrapy of Caria.

Cyrus, the younger son of Darius and his wife, the cruel and ambitious Parysatis, is the favorite of his mother, who hopes to secure the succession for him instead of her eldest son, Arsaces.

Cyrus and Lysander, the commander of the Peloponnesian fleet in 408-407, get on instantly (it surely helps their relationship that Persia has made concessions, if make them it has, about the autonomy of the Greek cities).

Lysander, as admiral of the Peloponnesian fleet in 408-407 BCE, improves its condition with the assistance of Cyrus the Younger.

All of Caria is rejoined under the King's Peace to Persia's Achaemenian Empire as a separate satrapy under the rule of the native Hecatomnid dynasty.

…Halicarnassus, the result of a synoecism in which Greeks and native Carians (“Lelegians”) are integrated into a new city physically beautified with monumental buildings, a great wall circuit, and a secret dockyard and canal, while its population is swollen by the enforced transference of the neighboring Lelegians.

Orontes, described by the sources as satrap of Mysia, leads the last and greatest phase of the Revolt of the Satraps (362-359). (“Mysia”, possibly an enclave in the Troad region of Anatolia, could, however, also be an error for “Armenia.” If so, the geographic spread of the insurrectionist satraps is still greater.)

The other rebelling satraps are Mausolus of Caria (briefly) and …