| "I have lying over me in Halicarnassus a gigantic monument such as no other dead person has, adorned in the finest way with statues of horses and men, carved most realistically from the best quality marble."
Maussolus, who refounded Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum), is the satrap of Caria. He made Halicarnassus his capital. It was a general practice in the Greek world to bestow the founder of the city with honor and appraisals and to build a tomb in his name on the central square of the new town and this happened with Maussolus as well. On his death in the year of 353 BC, Maussolus was succeeded by his wife Artemisia who invited the Greek artists to build a fitting tomb in the memory of her husband.
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