Halicarnassus

Halicarnas'sus

( Α῾λικάρνασσος), in Caria of Asia Minor, a city of great renown, as being the birthplace of Herodotus and of the later historian Dionysius, and as embellished by the mausoleum erected by Artemisia, but of no Biblical interest except as the residence of a Jewish population in the periods between the Old and New Testament histories. In 1 Macc. 15:23, this city is specified as containing such a population. The decree in Josephus (Ant. 14, 10, 23), where the Romans direct that the Jews of Halicarnassus shall be allowed their national usage of proseuchoe, or prayer-chapels by the sea-side (τὰς ποσευχὰς ποιεῖσφαι τῇ φαλάσσῃ κατὰ τὸ πάτριον ἔφος); is interesting when compared with Ac 16:13. This city was celebrated for its harbor and for the strength of its fortifications; but. having made a vigorous and protracted defense against Alexander the Great, he was so much enraged that upon gaining at length possession of it, he destroyed it by fire-a calamity from which it never recovered. A plan of the site is given in Ross, Reisen auf den Griech. Ilseln, 1, 30 (copied in Smith's Dict. of Class. Geog. s.v.). The sculptures of the. mausoleum are the subject of a paper by Mr. Newton in the Classical Museum, and many of them are now in the British Museum (see also his full work, Discoveries at Halicarniassus, etc., Lond. 1862-3). The modern name of the place is Budrum.