Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending from Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. In Greek mythology, Zeus and Creta's son Kar founded Caria and named it after him, and his brothers Lydos and Mysos founded Lycia and Mysia, respectively. At the time of the Trojan War, Caria and the Carian city of Miletus allied with Troy against the Achaeans. Caria became a neo-Hittite kingdom in the mid-11th century BC, and the Dorian invasion of Mycenaean Greece led to the exodus of Mycenaean Greeks to the Anatolian coast, where they established colonies in Caria and elsewhere. King Croesus of Lydia would conquer Caria during the 6th century BC, only for his own kingdom to be conquered by the Achaemenid Persians of Cyrus the Great shortly after. Caria became an Achaemenid satrapy in 545 BC, and Halicarnassus became its most important town. The Carian ruler Artemisia served as a Persian commander during the Greco-Persian Wars, and, from 479 to 428 BC, the Carian Greeks broke free from Persian rule before being subjugated for another century. In 334 BC, following the Siege of Halicarnassus, Caria became a satrapy of Alexander the Great's Macedonian empire. During the 4th century AD, while Caria was under Roman rule, the Romans divided Caria and the other historic regions of Anatolia into new regions.
Gallery[]
