Best known as the birthplace of Herodotus, Halicarnassus also produced, nearly five centuries later, another historian whose contribution to classical scholarship has long remained overshadowed by that of his illustrious predecessor. Yet if Herodotus sought to explain the emergence and conduct of imperial power, Dionysius of Halicarnassus sought to answer a different question: why had Rome become the rightful ruler of the Mediterranean? This distinction is fundamental. Dionys