Tetradrachm - Mausolus Mylasa

Mausolus ruled Caria as a satrap under the Achaemenids but governed with the practical independence of a dynast, shifting his capital from Mylasa to Halicarnassus around 370 BC and systematically hellenizing his administration, coinage, and court. He is better remembered today for the tomb his widow Artemisia II commissioned after his death in 353 BC — the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders — but his monetary policy during his lifetime was the more consequential act, deliberately aligning Carian coinage with Aegean Greek weight standards to facilitate trade with the Ionian cities he was steadily absorbing into his sphere.