Mausolus was a ruler of Caria, nominally 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 had succeeded the assassinated Persian Satrap Tissaphernes in the Carian satrapy and founded the hereditary dynasty of the Hecatomnids. He is best known for the monumental shrine, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, erected and named for him by order of his widow Artemisia.