Introduction
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BESIDES the natural advantages arising from its size, fertility, and wealth, Cyprus derived from its position, within a day's sail of the coast of Syria, great importance in the remote ages when civilisation had only begun to dawn in Greece, but had already advanced to a high degree in Assyria and Egypt. In later times this position between the East and the West gives its history a chequered character of war and conquest. But we must first go back to a period when Greece and the Western nations were of no political importance, and were only of value to the East for the sake of trade. The great traders of this period were the Phoenicians, and it is beyond doubt that in the course of this early commerce the Greeks obtained several important elements of their later civilisation; their alphabet and systems of weights and measures appear to have been derived from this source, and in recent years it has been argued with great show of reason that the Greeks had also learned from the Phoenicians what has been called the alphabet of art, that is a knowledge of the technical processes of such industrial arts
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as weaving, embroidery, pottery, metal-working, and wood-carving.*
To a people confined as the Phoenicians originally were to a narrow strip of coast, skilled and largely occupied with metal-working, as they are known to have been in the time of Homer, Cyprus with its unlimited wealth of copper must have presented an attraction which its close proximity would enable them to easily gratify. At what time they may have first settled in the island it is impossible to ascertain from the accumulation of legends which has gathered round and obscured the original facts. This much has been established, that Cyprus was the Chittim* of the Old Testament, though no doubt this name was also at times extended to the \Yestern nations generally. Josephus (i. 7) expressly identifies it with Cyprus, and other writers followed him, while the existence of a town of the name of Citium in the island, is itself a strong corroboration of the statement. What authority Eusebius may have had for saying that the town of Paphos had been founded by Israelites expelled in the time of the first Judge Athaniel we do not know, but the assertion is in direct conflict with the other traditions, and may perhaps be best dismissed. The early Phoenician settlers appear to have retained their connection with the mother country, and in the time of Hiram, King of Tyre, a contemporary of David and Solomon (circa B.C. 1000), we find them revolting**
* See Brunn, "Die Kunst bei Homer," and A. S. Murray in the Contemporary Contemporary Review, January, 1X74.
** Chittim was a son of Javan, grandson of Japhet, and great grandson of Noah, and it has been conjectured that it was this Canaanite race of the Chittim who emigrated to Cyprus and gave the island their name. The biblical Caphtor has also been identified as another name of Cyprus. In early Egyptian documents it occurs as keft. kefta,. and kefa. See R. S. Poole. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. xi.. pt. i. New Series.
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against the tribute levied by Tyre. The revolt was reduced by Hiram, and it would appear from the association of Chittim with the destruction of Tyre in the prophecy of Isaiah, that Cyprus was still in his time (the latter part of the eighth century B.C.) in intimate relations with Tyre. There is reason to believe that the Phoenician settlers had been joined by emigrants from the kindred race of Cilicians and others from Phrygia, but it is not thought that Egypt had ever sent any colonists thither, though there is the statement of Herodotus that the population consisted partly of Æthiopians. We have thus on the one hand a Semitic population from whom this island took the name of Chittim. the town of Citium having been apparently the first settlement. It is not likely that they had any strong sense of political independence, but probable rather that they lived quietly and industriously for the sake of trade and commerce. On the other hand we have a Greek population through whom this island was known as Kypros* a name which it has been proposed to derive from the Hebrew Kopher (Henna = Lawsonia alba], a plant which grows in abundance there, and in ancient times was made to produce a variety of oils and salves. On this theory the derivation from the name of a plant would correspond with the derivation of "Rhodes" from the rose.**
There will be occasion afterwards to speak of the severral colonies sent to Cyprus from the mainland of Greece, but meantime we find, as usual with the Greeks, a tendency of the Cyprian legends to connect the history of the island with the fortunes of the Greeks in
* Stephanos - Κύπρος... ἤ ἀπὸ τοῖ φυομένου ἄνθοις κίπροι. Engel. p 14.
** The other more or less poetic names of Cyprus were: Aeria, Aerosa. Akamantis, Amathusia, Aphrodisia, Aspelia, Collinia, Kerastes, Kryptos, Meinis, Ophiusa, Makaria, Paphos, Sphekeia and Tharsis. For the various explanations of these names, see Engel, " Kypros," i., pp. 11-24.
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the Trojan war. The legendary hero of Cyprus was Cinyras, to whom was traced the invention of the hammer, anvil, tongs, and other tools used in metalworking, and it was he who ruled the island when the Trojan expedition started. Like the other Greek princes he was requested to take part in the war, and we have in Homer (Iliad, xi. 19) a description of the armour which he presented to Agamemnon:
"Atrides summoned all to arms; to arms himself disposed:
First on his legs he put bright greaves with silver buttons closed;
Then with rich cuirass armed his breast which Cinyras bestowed
To gratify his roval guest, for even to Cyprus flowed
The unbounded fame of those designs the Greeks proposed for Troy,
And therefore gave to him those arms and wished his purpose joy.
Ten rows of azure mixed with black; twelve golden like the sun,
Twice ten in tin in beaten paths did through the armour run;
Three serpents to the gorget crept that like three rainbows shined,
Such as by Jove are fixed in clouds when wonders are divined."
(Chapman's Translation.)
It was said, however, that Agamemnon's armour turned out to be worthless, but this was told rather to reflect on the character of Palamedes, who had been sent to solicit the aid of Cinyras, and had kept for himself the really valuable presents entrusted to him for Agamemnon by the Cyprian king, substituting the worthless armour, and saying that Cinyras would send one hundred ships, none of which ever appeared; other stories set Cinyras himself in an unfavourable light. The Greeks on their way to Troy had stopped at Cyprus, and been very hospitably received by him; he undertook to supply them with provisions during the war, but did not fulfil his promise, and for this incurred the deep anger of Agamemnon.
According to another story, Cinyras had promised Menelaus to send fifty ships to Troy, but when the time came sent only one. making up the number with small ships made of clay, with crews of clay
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figures.* Owing to this treachery Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, landed at Cyprus, expelled Cinyras, and settled part of his Greek followers at Amathus. It is not unreasonable to suppose that stories of this kind, which present the Cypriotes as connected with the Greeks but yet faithless towards them, indicate the true position of affairs previous to the time when the Greeks became the more powerful part of the population.
The shape of this island was not inappropriately compared by the ancients to that of a deer's skin or a fleece spread out. Eastward it extends in a long promontory ending in Cape Dinaretum (now St. Andreas) before which are several small islands known as the " Kleides " or "Keys." On the north coast projects Cape Crommyon (Kormakiti); on the west Cape Acamas (St. Epiphanio); and on the south Cape Curias (Cape Gatto). Between these main extremities are numerous points or promontories connected by an abundance of bays favourable to shipping.
The principal mountain ranges are in the west and south-west, the highest point being that of Mount Olympus (Trodos or Troödos), 6590 feet, nearly midway between the towns of Curium in the south, and Soli in the north. From Mount Olympus a view of the whole island can be obtained. Whether it was on this mountain, or on a promontory of the same name, which is said to have been on the north-east side of the island, that the Temple of Venus Acraea stood is not certain. To that temple no women were admitted. Next in height to Mount Olympus is Mount Adelphi (Maschera), 5380 feet, and still in the same range, but farther eastward, is a hill rising to 4730 feet, the ancient name of which is not determined. In a western prolongation of this chain we have Mount Sta. Croce, 2300 feet, on
* See clay boats engraved, p. 259.
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which in ancient times was a Temple to Jupiter. This temple was in ruins when the Empress Helen, mother of Constantine, visited Cyprus; and a tradition, from which the hill derives its present name, asserts that Saint Helen caused a chapel to be erected on the spot, and deposited in it a piece of the cross which she had brought from Jerusalem. An English traveller, John Locke, says that he saw the relic in Cyprus in 1553. There is a ruined Greek convent now on the top of the hill, and on the eastern slope is another convent dedicated to Sta. Barbara. The northern coast is mountainous along its whole extent, from Cape Crommyon to Cape Dinaretum, but the highest points do not exceed 3340 feet. Mount Buffavento is 3240 feet, Mount Pentedaktylon 2480 feet, and Mount Elias 2810 feet. It is not known from which mountain it was that the volcanic eruption took place in the time of Titus, doing very great damage to the neighbourhood. The island generally seems to have been subject to earthquakes; Paphos being the particular victim, and next to it Amathus. From the mountains rose numerous streams, but only two or three rivers of any consequence. The Pedios, or Pedaios, which enters the sea between Salamis anct Famagusta, was, and still is, the most important of these. Its course is eastward, through Nicosia and part of the large fertile plain of Mesaoria, which lies behind the mountain ranges on the north and south sides of the island; it is called now the Pedia. In 1330 it was swollen by heavy rains and inundated Nicosia, to the destruction of much life and property. For some weeks the plain of Mesaoria was like a lake. The Clarius near Soli, and the Bocarus at Paphos are now dry most of the vear, while the Tetius is only a winter torrent. The Lapethus runs all the year, and the Lycus is a respectable stream. Originally, it is said, the whole island was covered with wood, which first beiran to be cleared and used for
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the purpose of mining, and afterwards on a large scale for ship building. For the latter the pines, which in historical times grew abundantly, were employed, and in some cases also the cedar, which is said to have surpassed in Cyprus even its dimensions on the Lebanon hills. In the neighbourhood of Paphos and Amathus were grown large quantities of grain, while the island generally is spoken of by ancient writers as possessing in great abundance the largest variety of natural products. The plant Cyprus (Henna — Lawsonia alba), from which the island is said to have derived its name, has already been mentioned, and in the preparation of dyes and salves from this and other plants arose a considerable industry in ancient times. The cultivation of hemp and flax was another profitable occupation. But the chief source of wealth was in the copper mines, which yielded not only a finer quality of copper, but also a greater supply of it than any other mines known to the ancients. It was from its prevalence and general use that its proper name of Χάλκος Κύπριος — Aes Cyprium, came to be shortened into Cyprum, and anglicised into copper. The principal mines were at Tamassus, Amathus, Soli, Curium, and near the promontory of Crommyon. The supply of iron was considerable, while silver and gold were also found, but apparently not in large quantities. There is no doubt that under the original Greek settlers, and for centuries after them, while the unlimited natural resources of the island were being developed, Cyprus had maintained a high character among the Greek islands. But in time the easily acquired products of nature, the wealth arising from trade, the enervating climate,* and not least, perhaps, the intercourse with the East rendered the people of Cyprus proverbial as the
* Of the climate, Martial (ix. 92) says, Infamen nimio calore Cyprum. Louis IX. spent a winter in Cyprus while on his crusade 1248-9, and lost twenty-six of his nublest knights.
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happiest beings on earth as far as luxury and pleasure could make them so, and the natural consequence of this was that there was no excess or refinement oi indulgence which they did not practise. In this the worship of Aphrodite played an important part. To a great extent it decided the character of public and private morality throughout the island, and that the result was highly disgraceful may be seen from numerous passages in the ancient writers.* Everyone knows the description which Herodotus gives (i. 199) of the custom of Babylonian women at the Temple of Mylitta, the Assyrian counterpart of Aphrodite, and he adds that the same thing prevailed in Cyprus. Later writers entirely confirm what he says, and the pictures which they draw of the grand festivals to the goddess at Paphos leave little for the imagination of man to invent, one would think, in the way of gross indulgence. It may be some defence to say that the prescripts of religion required much of this, but there seems to have been little or nothing to counteract it. There are, for instance, only slight traces of there having existed such means for the athletic training of the youth as are found elsewhere among the Greeks. The mass of the people were apparently also stupid, the nickname of βοῦς Κύπριος being an expression similar to βοιωτία ὗς, and in Greece generally they were spoken of with contempt. Much of the blame was due to the kings, who affected the luxuriousness and ceremony of Oriental princes. An example of how the King of Νeo-Paphos lived is preserved in Athænaeus (vi. 257), in a fragment of a comedy by Antiphanes. During dinner this monarch was kept cool by doves hovering around him. To allure them he was salved with Tyrian oil, made from a fruit which they liked, and recognised the odour of. But as they ap-
* See Terence. Adelphi. ii. 2: Athenæus, xiii. 586-594, iii. 100: Plautus, ???? (have to check the work), 1251, fol.
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proached to settle on his head, attendants warded them carefully off, and the constant flutter of their wings produced the necessary effect of cooling.
As regards the monarchical institutions of Cyprus, it is known that both Aristotle and Theophrastus wrote on that subject, but their special writings have been lost, and only a very few facts remain. Besides the kings who ruled the several towns, much as the Persian satraps ruled the provinces of Asia Minor, there was an aristocracy which is only known for its services to the kings. From the aristocracy was chosen the Kolakes, a sort of secret police, whose business it was to make enquiries about all persons who might be dangerous to the state. They were divided into two classes, called Gergini and Promalanges. The duty of the former was to mix with the people in their places of public resort, and even in their private houses, and to report daily what they found out against anyone to the Anaktes or Supreme Court, consisting of the immediate relatives of the king. When further investigation appeared to be necessary, the Promalanges were then required to undertake it. By means of disguise and other precautions they were unknown to the people. On the other hand there were the public councils of a Boule and Gerusia, as in Ephesus, and apparently the example of Athens was to some extent followed in the arrangement of public affairs. Solon passed the latter part of his life in Cyprus, and died there, but it does not appear that he had exercised much influence in improving the laws and public institutions.* The
* It may have been from his influence that the law came into existence which prescribed the punishment of death to any one who killed an ox used for ploughing, since at Athens the slaughter of yoke oxen was also severely punished; again, the law which required a person who committed suicide to be left unburied, resembles a law existing in Athens.
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kings traced their lineal descent to the original founders of the several towns where they ruled, and in some respects they may have maintained the traditions of the princes of the heroic age.
Of extraordinary importance was also the hierarchy of Cyprus, in particular the priestly family of the Cinyradæ at old Paphos, whose ancestors had introduced the worship of Aphrodite from Phoenicia, as tradition went. Paphos, like Delphi in Greece, was the centre of the earth, and the Cinyradæ were at the head of it, both in political and religious matters. The oldest of them for the time being was the chief, with whom the others of the family were associated as a council of priests. His power in regard to religious affairs extended over the island. At Amathus also the priestly family were of the race of the Cinyradæ, but their power was not so considerable. An entirely new constitution was given to the island when Ptolemy the First conquered it and expelled the race of kings.
Copper-mining and the production of swords, armour, and other articles in bronze, formed the staple trade of Cyprus from the heroic ages down to the times of the Romans. That the quality of the armour was highly prized in Homer's time may be gathered from his description of the present made by Cinyras to Agamemnon, already quoted, and it retained its reputation. Alexander the Great had a Cyprus sword given him by the King of Citium, and praised for its lightness and good quality, while Demetrius Poliorcetes, when besieging Rhodes, received two suits of armour from Cyprus, which according to tradition the maker tested by exposing them at twenty paces to darts shot from an engine for this purpose. The metal stood this test so successfully that Demetrius took one of the suits for his own wear. The copper of Cyprus was in demand in most places of the ancient world. Next to the working
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of it stood ship-building (Ezekiel, xxvii. 7). The ships are said to have been very large, and it is related of Demetrius Poliorcetes that he had one built in Cyprus of cedar-wood, 130 feet long. As regards the fine arts it does not appear, to judge from literary records as they now exist, that Cyprus had ever held an important place. The name of only one sculptor has been handed down — Styppax, a contemporary of Pericles, and the author of a celebrated sculpture called the Splanchnoptes, representing a slave roasting the entrails of an animal, and blowing up the fire with his mouth (Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxxiv. 81, xxii. 44; Overbeck, Geschichte, i. p. 331, 2nd ed.). From an inscription in Rhodes (Hirschfeld, Tituli Statuariorum, No. 67; Overbeck, Antike Schriftquellen, Xo. 2020) and from another inscription in Theræ (Hirschfeld, Xo. 67 A; Overbeck, Xo. 2019), we know Simos as the sculptor of two statues. He was a native of the town of Salamis. The name of another sculptor, Onasiphon, also a native of Salamis, occurs in an inscription from Rhodes (Hirschfeld, Xo. 68), while that of Epicharmos of Soli is found on two pedestals, the statues of which have disappeared, in Rhodes (Hirschfeld, No. 71 A), and in Lindus (Hirschfeld, No. 71). On a marble tablet at Neo-Paphos (Hirschfeld, No. 178) is an inscription describing a piece of sculpture by one Zenodotos, who claims to have worked in the Phidian manner, or perhaps had only copied the motive from works by Phidias.* But it seems that
* Of the great number of specimens of ancient art found in recent years, some have been published, as follows: 1st. Photographs from the Cesnola Collection, with introduction by Professor Sidney Colvin, London; 2nd. Catalogue of Cesnola Collection, by Johannes Doell, St. Petersburg; 3rd. Objects discovered by R. II. Lang, British Consul at Cyprus, with discussion of their artistic style, by R. S. Poole. Transactions of Royal Society of Literature, xi., pt. i. New Series.
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embroidery had been carried to something like the degree of a fine art in Cyprus, since we find that at Delphi there was a specimen of this class of work to which was attached an epigram showing that it had been executed by Helicon, a son of Acesas, a native of Salamis, whom Pallas had inspired in this art.
It seems that Acesas also was distinguished for his skill in this kind of work (Overbeck, Ant. Schrift., No. 385-387). There is little doubt but that this skill of the Cypriotes had been arrived at under the influence of the Assyrians, who appear to have maintained their reputation in this department of work down to the time of Antiochus, who is mentioned by Pausanias* as having presented the temple of Olympia with a curtain of Assyrian work. As regards the legendary art of the island, the armour of Cinyras, his vessels of clay with clay crews, and the image made by Pygmalion, there was apparently at least this foundation for these stories, that Cyprus had been from very early times actively engaged in metal working, in producing figures in clay or terra-cotta, and in sculpture.
With about thirty seaports, having convenient harbours, and with unlimited supplies of wood for ship building, Cyprus was in a position to appropriate a great part of the commerce between the East and the West, in addition to the exportation of its own over-abundant produce, such as silicate of copper, vitriol, wood, wine, grain, oil, wool, flax, canvas, woven stuffs, salves, fruits.
* Pausanias (v. 12, 4) calls it a παραπέτασμα ἐρείον (??? check the last word) ot Assyrian work, and dyed with the purple dye of the Phœnicians. This curtain, he adds, was let down from the roof to the pavement by ropes, not as in the Temple at Ephesus, raised from the floor upwards. In another place (viii. 5. 2) Pausanias mentions a robe (peplos) presented to the statue of Athena Alea, at Tegea, by Laodike, a descendant of Agapenor. the original founder of Paphoswhere she still lived.
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INTRODUCTION. 13 precious stones, &c. Of the seaports Citium always held pre-eminence. In literature, the reputation of the island stood higher than in art. It boasted of the earliest of the Greek prophetic singers, Euclos, some of whose verses were known as late as the time of Pausanias. It was the native place of the author of one of the celebrated epic poems of antiquity, the Cyprian Iliad, as it was called, or simply and generally the Kypria. That Homer was born in Cyprus, that he was the author of the " Kypria," or that he gave his daughter in marriage to the Cyprian poet Stasinos, are doubtless idle inventions. The two real claimants to the authorship of the poem in question are Stasinos and Hegesias, but the claims of the former seem to be the stronger of the two> and probably it was from his being the acknowledged author that he was brought into relationship with Homer. As to the poetic merits of the Kypria, it is to be observed that Herodotus (ii. 117) does not allege inferiority as his reason for thinking that it was not the work of Homer, but relies on a discrepancy of incident. Aristotle censures it in comparison with Homer for its too great variety of incident. There must have been an important school of Homeric poets in the island about the latter half of the eighth century B.C., to which period this poem is assigned. The Kypria consisted of eleven books, of which we possess now only what is called the argument as preserved by Proclus in Photius, but from this it is possible to gather the main incidents of the poem. The subject of the Iliad is the war of Troy, and the subject of the Kypria is the events which caused and preceded the war of Troy. It is therefore a sort of introduction to the Iliad. At the same time it must not be supposed that these earlier legendary incidents had been invented by the poet. What he did was to collect a great number of local legends which are not in the Iliad, and to preserve them.
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To this we now owe much of our knowledge of the legends of the Trojan cycle, and it is certain that the great variety of scenes and events in this poem formed a mine of subjects for the tragic poets and artists of Greece. Besides Stasinos, the probable author of the Kypria and his rival claimant Hegesias, we find Cleon of Curium mentioned as the author of a poem on the Argonauts, to which it is said Apollonius Rhodius had been largely indebted in writing his poem of the Argonauts, which now exists. Judging from the reputation of the island for its poetry in the time of Pindar, one would conclude that there must have been many other poets in Cyprus whose names and works have been lost. There is the lyric poet Hermeias of Curium, of \vhose verse Athenaeus has preserved a specimen. Several fragments of the comedies of Sopatios are also to be found in Athenasus. Among the prose writers, of whom there is a considerable number known by name, Clearchos of Soli, a pupil of Aristotle, is the principal figure. His work, entitled Gergithios, was an exposure of the system of sycophants at the Cypriote courts. He was the author also of a book of biographies. There was, however, no more illustrious native of Cyprus than Zeno the philosopher (born B.C. 362), the founder of the Stoic school; Citium was his birthplace, and it was as proud of him as he was attached to it. The language employed in literary compositions, and indeed the prevailing language of the island in historical times, was Greek. The Phoenician inhabitants, probablv those of Citium and Idalium in particular, had retained their native tongue, and though neither their position in relation to the Greeks, nor the capacity of their language, was calculated to exercise much influence on the current Greek, yet it is noticeable that in the considerably large series of words handed down as peculiar to Cyprus a number of them are obviously of Semitic
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INTRODUCTION. 15 origin (Engel, i. pp. 557~593)- The mixture of colonists from different parts of Greece bringing different dialects may have produced the others. That the ordinary Greek alphabet was employed for literary purposes is to be inferred from the familiarity of Greek authors with Cypriote literature, and from their silence as to any peculiarity on this point. It was, therefore, a matter of surprise and deep interest to scholars when inscriptions came to be found written in a hitherto unknown character. The first who rendered important service as regards these inscriptions, was the Due de Luynes, by his publication of " Numismatique et Inscriptions Cypriotes," Paris, 1852, containing all the inscriptions then known, and among them a now celebrated bronze tablet, with an inscription of thirty-one lines, found at Idalium. In 1855, Professor Roth published a translation of this tablet, making it out to be a proclamation of the Egyptian king Amasis to the people of Cyprus, and assuming the language to be Semitic. But this and all attempts at decipherment failed until a bilingual inscription, in Phcenician and Cypriote, discovered by my English colleague, R. H. Lang, was made known. Mr. Lang had himself made some progress with the correct reading of this document, when the late Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, quite independently discovered the same clue, and succeeded in determining the value of forty of the characters or signs of the Cypriote alphabet, or syllabarium, as it is more properly called. At this stage Dr. Birch, the Keeper of Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum, perceiving the language written in this strange character to be essentially Greek, applied the newly found key to the bronze tablet of the Due de Luynes, and published his reading of it in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (vol. i., pt. 2, 1873). The whole subject was next taken up by Dr. Brandis of
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i6 CYPRUS. Berlin, and investigated with his characteristic patience and thoroughness up to the time of his too early death. His result was published in the Monatsbericht of the Berlin Academy, 1873; and to that publication we would refer those who desire a secure foundation for the study of the Cypriote language."" The following table, which represents the alphabet as far as it was made out by him, is taken from the article just mentioned. I. Gutturals. b. JV. y< 7. Vrrr ^ 1.2. 2£ /:« £ u 3. A -<# 8. f\ go 5.$ 4. r 1 ko-A- II. Dentals th — tha d \r da 9. h ta 10. T i(C) 12. ^ m (?) 13. ± de< the, te T do 11. T to 14. €*\ --or t/ios <D -s 15. ili «« 20. ^?« 25. Jl n/ — 1C. A, /^ m 21. 4: li - ri sisn 22. 8 h 26. — SO 17. fr no 23..0. /(o) X ro 18. ^ an (on) V s 19. ^A, 0! en 24. + -i 5. -r 27. r 19tf. X -„? 28. ^ KO 29. * I would add also the valuable contribution to this subject by I'rof Isaac II. Hall, of Xe\v York, "The Cypriote Inscriptions of the I.)i Cesnola Co!le< lion," from the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. x., 1875. in which fac-similes of the inscriptions are given.
[The original page contains a table of Cypriot syllabic signs; consult the scanned page for accurate glyphs.]
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INTRODUCTION. 17 III. Labials p b m 30. T pa 33. * la 33. -£ ma 4= pa 31. V ^ - M 34. /*! mt 32. T po -00 -l£ wj« 35. A »i? IV. Vowels 36. # a, \ Mostly at 39 *,. 42 x beginning ot wora 37. * a Middle 40. )'( i End 43. >lt £, », 38. 1C a w 41. A j o u ou (?) 44. £ o, 47. V v 49. # Ou 45. // o 48. '/y Mostly at end 46. ^ o of word and Alternating mthN1? 47. Mr. R. H. Lang believes (Transactions Roy. Soc. Lit., xi. pt. i, New Series, p. 23) that this language and writing had been handed down from the original inhabitants of the island, previous to the advent of the Phoenicians. As regards the race to which these aborigines belonged, he says, " in Genesis we read (ch. x. ver. 4), ' and the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim: ' (ver. 5) ' By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands.' In other words we are told that the inhabitants of Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, Dodanim or Rodanim, were of the Javanian (or as we have it later, Ionian) family. It will be admitted that the Kittim alluded to by the author of Genesis was Cyprus, and if so, then we have the testimony of the most ancient and theological record extant that the original inhabitants of the island were
[The original page contains a table of Cypriot syllabic signs; consult the scanned page for accurate glyphs.]
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descendants of Javan and part of the great Greek family, with which, even in our days, the Cypriotes are closely allied. One circumstance which has been generally overlooked adds considerable weight to the testimony of the writer of Genesis, if we suppose him to have been Moses, who was brought up at the court of Pharaoh. In the time of Moses the island was actually a possession of Egypt, having been conquered by the Egyptian fleet under Thothmes III. This testimony, then, with regard to the inhabitants of Cyprus, was probably based on authentic information possessed by the court of Pharaoh. Whence this population came to the island we cannot conjecture." " When treating lately of the Cypriote alphabet in a paper read to the Biblical Society of Archaeology, I had occasion to show its similarity to the alphabet of Lycia, and this circumstance leads me to suggest that an off-shoot of the great Aryan emigration which peopled Lycia, may have crossed the Cilician sea, only about fifty miles broad, and penetrated into Cyprus."Besides the extreme probability of settlers from Cilicia coming to Cyprus as pointed out by Mr. Lang, there is the fact stated by Tacitus ^Hist. 2, 3) that at the time when the Cinyradae came from Phoenicia another priestly family, the Tamiradae, arrived from Cilicia and exercised their prophetic powers in the island. This was pointed out by Engel in 1841, but he, being convinced that the early Cilicians were of the same Semitic stock as the Phoenicians, concluded i. p. 178 that this settlement of Cilicians had not altered the ethnological character of the island. The similarity between the Cvpriote and Lycian alphabets would be a more important fact than it is were the Lvcian language deciphered satisfactorily; there are certain similarities also in the sculptures of Cyprus and
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Lycia which will be pointed out, but at present they seem rather traceable to an oriental than to a Greek origin. While the two languages of Cyprus — Greek and Phosnician — remained distinct, it would seem that the religion of the two separate races had become successfully amalgamated. The goddess of Paphos, whose temple there had been founded, according to tradition, in imitation of a temple of the Tyrian goddess Astarte at Ascalon, and had a perpetual priesthood, tracing their lineage to the Tyrian founder Cinyras, was accepted by the Greeks throughout the island as Aphrodite. She was in the first place the Goddess 01 Love, and considering that however much language or nationality may vary, this passion at least is very constant in mankind, it cannot be surprising that the two races of Cyprus worshipped one goddess in common. Her symbol was a cone, such as stood in the adytum of the temple at Paphos, and whatever its signification may ultimately have been, the likelihood is that it originated in reference to the functions of the Pelasgic Aphrodite as a goddess of fertility. The two originally distinct elements in the religion of the Paphian goddess are indicated by her two titles of Pandemos and Urania, with her separate genealogy for each. As Pandemos she was a daughter of Zeus and Dione, and represented originally a pure Greek conception of a goddess of Nature, and it is in this genealogy that she is known to Homer. As Urania she was the offspring of Uranos, born in the foam of the Sea (Aphrodite), and coming finally to land in Cyprus. As a goddess of the Heavens (Uranos) she reminds us that the principal deities of the Asiatic race to which the Phoenicians belonged, were the Sun and Moon — Baal and Mylitta in Babylon. And again, as a goddess born of the sea she reminds us that the goddess Derceto was represented at Ascalon in the
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form of a fish. It was apparently under the influence of the Asiatic side of her religion that the prostitution of women in her service became as great at Cyprus as it was at Babylon in the service of Mylitta. The love of Aphrodite for beautiful youths is known from the stories of Adonis, Phaethon, and Cinyras, while on the other hand the love of mortals for her or her image is shown in the story of Pygmalion, who made for himself an ivory figure of the goddess, and poured out his yearnings towards it. On one of her festival days he approached her altar and implored that the figure might be endowed with life. The goddess heard his prayer, the image warmed into life, and bore to Pygmalion the beautiful boy "• Paphos." Stones less elevated in character than this are told of love for the statue of Aphrodite at Cnidos. But her chief favourite in Cyprus was Cinyras, whose praise was sung and related far and wide. In beauty of an effeminate sort he was compared with Sardanapalus. His wealth, like that of Midas, was proverbial, but with the difference that he knew how to use it. It was he who had introduced the worship of Aphrodite into Paphos, and settled a hereditary right to her priesthood in his family. Early institutions and inventions, from which the island had benefited, were traced to him, and we have already seen that in the Iliad he appears as a Greek prince, and a wealthy contemporary of Agamemnon. The genealogy of Cinyras is in inextricable confusion. In one place he is a son of Apollo and Pharmake; in another a son of Paphos, the offspring of Pygmalion and the ivorv image; in a third his father was Theias, who at one time appears as an early king of the island, and at another as King of Assyria, having as children, besides Cinyras, Myrrha and Adonis, who usually are called the children of Cinyras. In the other legends his descent is traced
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INTRODUCTION. 21 to Cecrops. Again, his wife is given sometimes as Metharme, a daughter of Pygmalion, and at other times Cenchreis. With reference to the colonisation of the island, it will be seen that the Phoenicians had settled on the south coast at the nearest and most convenient points for trade with the mother country, and had founded the three towns of Paphos, Amathus, and Citium, of which Paphos, with its greater celebrity in historical times, claimed to be the oldest; but probably this claim would be better allowed to Amathus, which traced its foundation to Amath, a grandson of Canaan, and retained such Phoenician peculiarities as the worship of Melkart, the Tyrian Hercules, and human sacrifice to Kronos, of which there is no evidence in Paphos. It was from Amathus, and not Paphos, that Agamemnon drove the Cinyradas, and their seat must have been the chief and probably the first settlement in the island. Citium was always merely a commercial city, as it is to this day, under the name of Larnaca. Whether Lapethus and Carpassia in the north \vere Phoenician towns is doubtful, though, from the remains discovered at those places, the former would appear Greek, while the latter is unmistakably Phoenician, in my opinion. The Greek colonization, according to legend, began with the return of the heroes from Trov.j i. Salamis was founded by Teucer, and named after his native island, where, on his return, his father Telamon would not receive him, and whence he fled with his companions to Cyprus, taking with him also his Trojan captives. According to Virgil, he landed first at Sidon, and obtained permission and assistance to settle in Cyprus from Belus, a King of Sidon. Possibly the Salaminians had gone to Cyprus along with the Athenian colony under Acamas, though it is given as a
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separate event. 2. The towns of Soli and Cythrea traced their foundation to the Athenians. The towns of Lapethus and Cerynia (3 and 4) were said to have been founded by a Lacedemonian colony under Praxander, and an Achaean colony under Kepheus. 5. Curium was founded by Arrives, but under whose leadership is not said. 6. A colony of Dryopians is mentioned as having planted a town named Asine, the site of which, however, is not known. 7. Agapenor, returning from Troy with his Arcadian followers, was wrecked on Cyprus, and founded Xeo-Paphos. 8. Golgos or Golgoi was founded by a colony of Sicyonians, under a leader, Golgos, whom the myth calls a son of Aphrodite and Adonis. It will be seen that, with the exception of the Argive colony of Curium, which lies between Paphos and Amathus, the Greek settlers chose the north and west coasts of the island; and of the west kingdoms of Cyprus, only two \vere distinctly Phoenician. At what time and under what circumstances these two towns had adopted the monarchical form of government of their Greek neighbours, is not known; but it could hardly have been until after their release from their vassalage to Tyre. The ten kingdoms were Salamis, Soli, Chytri, Curium, Lapethus, Cerynia, Xeo-Paphos, Marium, with Citium and Amathus as Phoenician. In the Iliad we have mention of Cinyras as apparently then the only king of the island; but altogether Cyprus does not seem to have been well known to the author of the Iliad, and was probably not a place of remarkable importance in his day. In the Odyssey, however, more is known of it. There is the visit of Menelaos (iv. 83-4), its supply of copper, for which Athene goes to Tamassus (i. 181), while Odysseus himself (xvii. 442) gives his experience of the friendliness of Dmetor, a King of Cyprus.
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INTRODUCTION. 23 On an Egyptian tomb it is stated that Thothmes III. conquered Cyprus; it appears elsewhere that Belus, King of Tyre, took the island at a later period and destroyed most of its cities; in B.C. 707, Sargon, the Assyrian monarch, conquered Cyprus, and made its kings his tributaries; B.C. 594, Apries, King of Egypt, (the Pharaoh Hophra of Scripture), defeated several Cypriote monarchs near Citium, and returned home laden with spoils. Amasis, who put Apries to death, overran the entire island, and imposed, as Herodotus says, a tribute on it. The same historian tells us that during the reign of Psammeticus the Cypriote rulers, tired of Egyptian control, surrendered themselves to Cambyses the Persian, and joined him in the war against the son of Amasis. When Darius became King of Persia, and founded the satrapies, Cyprus, with Phoenicia and Palestine, formed the fifth province. Some time after this, the people of the island, except the King of Amathus, revolted against the Persians, and joined the lonians. Onesilus, brother of Gorgus, King of the Salaminians, and leader of this revolt, besieged Amathus, but was forced to desist by the advance of the Persian general Artabazus, and, united with the lonians, their ships encountered the Persian fleet, mostly Phoenician vessels, off the Kleides (Cape St. Andreas), and after more than one combat, defeated it. Onesilus, at the beginning of the struggle, was equally victorious on land; but was ultimately defeated through the treachery of the Salaminians and of Stephanor (or Stasanor, as he is called by others), King of Curium, who deserted to the Persians. Onesilus and Aristocyprus. King of Soli, were slain, the head of the former was cut off by the Amathusians in revenge and placed over one of the gates of their city. Some time afterwards a swarm of bees took possession of the empty skull; the people of Amathus, alarmed, consulted the
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oracle at Paphos, which instructed them to appease the manes of Onesilus by interring his skull and making annual sacrifices in his honour; these ceremonies were still observed in the time of Herodotus (v. 104-5). The lonians hearing of the defeat of Onesilus and the submission of the Salaminians to Gorgus, returned to defend their own country. B.C. 477, the Athenians and Lacedemonians conquered part of Cyprus from the Persians; thirty years later Cimon, with 200 ships, made an effort to capture the remainder of the island, but as he died of disease while besieging Citium the fleet returned to Athens, and all the Athenian conquests were abandoned. Evagoras landed with a small force and endeavoured to conquer the island; but the kings of Arnathus, Soli, and Citium summoned the Persians to resist him. He then allied himself with King Acoris of Egypt, and the Athenians, and was aided by an Athenian fleet under Chabrias, but some time after this Artaxerxes made peace with the lonians and the Greeks of the isles, and Cyprus seemed to have reverted to the Persians. Evagoras, however, determined not to be left in the lurch by the desertion of his allies, reinforced himself among the Cypriotes, and procured mercenaries to the number of 70,000. He was assisted by the Tynans with twenty vessels, and by the Egyptians with fifty more, so that he had with his own fleet a navy of 200 ships. Artaxerxes sent 300,000 men and 300 ships, under the command of Orontes, his son-in-law, and Tinbazus, the latter having the supreme command. Evagoras contrived to attack near Citium a part of the enemy's fleet which was laden with stores; he captured many ships and destroyed many others; but while returning in triumph to Salamis he was met unprepared, behind Cape Peclalium, by the Persian admiral Gaos, with the remainder of the ships; Evagoras and his fleet
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INTRODUCTION. 25 were utterly defeated and dispersed. The Persian troops under Tiribazus attacked Citium, from which place Evagoras, leaving his son in command, departed secretly for Egypt in search of aid. His journey proving fruitless, he returned and sued for peace from Tiribazus; this was offered on three conditions: ist, that Evagoras should abandon all Cyprus, except his own dominion of Salamis; 2nd, that he should pay an annual tribute; and 3rd, that he should acknowledge the Persian monarch as his suzerain. Evagoras accepted the former two of these conditions, but proudly rejected the third, so that hostilities were begun again; but soon afterwards Tiribazus was replaced by Orontes, who agreed to the terms of Evagoras. And thus ended a contest often years' duration, which cost the Persians 50,000 talents, and left Evagoras in possession of his kingdom as before the war Evagoras was murdered by an eunuch named Thrasidaeus, and succeeded by his son Xicocles, who gave twenty talents to Isocrates in return for an eulogy which he had written in his father's honour. In an eulogy of Nicocles, the same orator treated at length of the reciprocal duties of subjects and kings. In his general oration on Evagoras, Isocrates leads us to understand that bull-fights, games, races, and other ceremonies occurred during the obsequies. In 350 B.C., nine Cypriote kings revolted against the Persian Artaxerxes Ochus, who ordered Idricus of Caria to send forty ships and 8,000 men under the command of Phocion and Evagoras, son of Nicocles, who had been disinherited by Protagoras. Phocion besieged Salamis by land and sea, his soldiers being attracted by the immense wealth of the city, which was then in the height of its prosperity, but the city resisted to the last, and until Protagoras succeeded in convincing Artaxerxes that Evagoras was betraying him; so that the latter was removed, and
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the submission of the former on favourable terms was accepted. When Alexander, B.C. 335, besieged Tyre, the Kings of Cyprus voluntarily aided him with 120 ships. In return for assistance on this occasion Alexander conferred the sovereignty of Citium on Pnytagoras. After the death of Alexander the Kings of Cyprus formed two parties: the Kings of Citium, Marium, Lapethus, and Cerynea, joined Antigonus; while Xicocreon, of Salamis, and all the others favoured Ptolemy Lagos. Ptolemy sent his brother Menelaus, with 12,000 men and 100 ships, to aid his friends in the island; Seleucus, who commanded the fleet, captured Cerynea and Lapethus, forced the Kings of Amathus and Marium to give hostages to him; he then went to besiege Pygmalion, King of Citium, in his capital. In the year 312 B.C., Ptolemy came with a large army to reduce to obedience the remaining rulers of Cyprus, and put Pygmalion to death because he had treacherously corresponded with Antigonus, probably after he had given hostages to Ptolemy, and, learning that Stasioscus and Praxippus were preparing to revolt again, sent them both prisoners to Egypt. He destroyed the city of Marium, and transferred its people to Paphos. Before leaving the island to fight Antigonus, Ptolemy made his friend, the King of Salamis (Xicocreon), ruler over all the cities of the dispossessed kings. \Yhile in Cilicia the Egyptian monarch learnt that Xicocles, King of Paphos, was treating secretly with Antigonus, and accordingly he despatched Argaeus and Callicrates to Cyprus with orders to slay Xicocles; on their arrival Menelaus gave them troops, who surrounded the condemned monarch's palace, entered it, and delivered the orders of Ptolemy to him. Xicocles endeavoured in vain to exculpate himself, but seeing that even his friends had deserted him he fell on his sword, and his wife, Axiothea, slew
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INTRODUCTION, herself on his corpse, after having killed her young daughters with her own hands. The slain king's brothers set fire to the palace, and with it consumed the royal household. Thus the entire family of the kings of Paphos was destroyed. Demetrius Poliorcetes, son of Antigonus, was, B.C. 306, sent by his father to expel Menelaus from Cyprus, and landed there with 15,000 foot and 400 horse, near Carpassia; with the aid of 100 galleys and other ships he attacked Salamis, having surprised Carpassia and taken Urania by assault. Menelaus opposed the invader with 12,000 infantry and 800 horsemen, and after a short but sanguinary battle was compelled to retreat in disorder to Salamis, his capital. Demetrius took 4000 prisoners, and slew more than 2000 of the native army in this combat, and afterwards strenuously besieged Menelaus in the city, using his land and naval forces for this purpose, blockading the harbour; the place was, however, well provisioned and strongly fortified, and resisted successfully. Ptolemy, hearing of the distress of his lieutenant, hastened to Cyprus with 150 galleys and 200 smaller vessels, landing first at Paphos and next at Citium. Demetrius, one of the ablest generals of antiquity, had meanwhile occupied all the important strategic points on the south-east coast of the island, from Cape St. Andreas to Citium, and on learning the arrival of the enemy, left ten galleys to continue the blockade of Salamis, and with the rest of his fleet met that of the Egyptian king between Capes Pyla and Pedalium (Cape Greco), and so thoroughly defeated the latter that Ptolemy returned home at once. Menelaus, thus left to his fate, surrendered at the discretion of the victor. Among the captives taken at Salamis was Leontiscus, son of Ptolemy, whom Demetrius set free. Antigonus, hearing of his son's great victory, assumed
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the title of king, and bestowed the same distinction on Demetrius. Ten years after these events Ptolemy Soter retook the island from Demetrius Poliorcetes; Salamis, where the family of the latter resided during his absence from Cyprus, being the only city which made any show of resistance to this new change. Ptolemy, however, without much effort, took the city, set the royal family free, and loaded Demetrius with gifts, thus returning the generosity by which he had benefited on the former occasion. After this capture, with hardly an intermission, Cyprus remained under the sceptre of the Ptolemies. Engel (i., p. 423) states that the island became independent of Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy Lathyros (B.C. 103), and that at this period the Cypriotes and the Maccabees of Judaea were at war. Cyprus was from this time until long after a dependency of Egypt, ruled by one of the Ptolemaic family, with the title of king, or by a viceroy chosen from among the most eminent Egyptians. The last of these potentates was Cleopatra's uncle, who devoted himself so earnestly to the acquisition of riches, that when Publius Claudius Pulcher, a Roman of high family, was taken prisoner by the Cilician pirates in the waters of Cyprus, and sent to the king of the island for his ransom, Ptolemy furnished but two talents for the purpose, which the pirates refused to accept, preferring to set their captive free without a ransom, and on his parole. The Roman determined to revenge himself, and being chosen Tribune obtained a decree from the Roman Senate to dispossess the king and constitute the island a province of Rome. Marcus Cato was commanded to put this decree in force, and despite his conscientious objections to this act of spoliation, was compelled to obey. On this he sent Canidius, his secretary, to Ptolemy in Cyprus to communicate his
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INTRODUCTION. 29 orders, and to offer him the high priesthood of trie Paphian Venus, with all its honours and riches, instead of the kingdom. On the arrival of the deputy, Ptolemy, not daring to resist, loaded several vessels with his much-loved treasures, and sailed from Salamis, intending perhaps to go elsewhere, or to sink them with himself into the sea, so as to deprive the greedy Romans of their prey; but his courage failing at the last moment, he returned, shut himself up in the palace, and with all his gold about him, took poison. Thus ended the Ptolemaic dynasty in Cyprus. Cato took possession of the island, and was well received by the inhabitants, who probably feared the Romans as much as their late monarch had done. He found immense treasures in the palace at Salamis, sold the whole for the enormous sum of 7,000 talents, and sent the money to Rome, reserving for himself, it is said, only a statuette of Zeno, the philosopher of Citium. In the year 52 B.C., Cicero superseded Appius as pro-consul of Cyprus and Cilicia, with his official residence at the latter place; by a letter from him to Sextius Rums, the first Quaestor of the island, it appears that he recommended in the strongest manner the Cypriotes to the care of this officer, particularly referring to the people of Paphos. Strabo tells us that Antony gave the island to Cleopatra, but at the death of the Triumvir, Augustus revoked the gift, and annexed Cyprus to the empire; he afterwards presented it to the Roman people, who despatched a pro-consul to govern it. It was in the reign of Tiberius that St. Paul visited the island, then under the pro-consul Sergius Paulus, and performed in that officer's presence the miracle on Bar-jesus, the sorcerer (Acts xiii. 14). When St. Paul visited Paphos, he was so badlv treated that he declared the citizens
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to be the worst men of the world. This description is said, and with some truth, to be a just one to this day. The Jews, although crushed by Vespasian and Titus in Judea, continued their resistance to the Romans in other provinces. Those of Cyprus formed a numerous army, which was led by Arteminius, and during the reign of Trajan, A.D. 115, committed such direful excesses that very nearly a quarter of a million Cypriotes were, it is said, slain. Two years later these malcontents were utterly defeated by the Romans, and by a decree of the Senate were expelled from the island. So rigidly was this law enforced, that during several succeeding centuries any Jew who was wrecked on the coast of Cyprus was instantly put to death. After this expulsion of the Jews, Christianity increased rapidly in the island, and, under Constantine, this province was one of the richest in his empire. The attempt of the camel driver Calocerus to make himself King of Cyprus, and thus revive the ancient independent position of the island, A.D. 334, was frustrated by Dalmatius, who captured the ambitious aspirant and sent him a prisoner to Constantine, who ordered the rebel to be flayed alive, and burnt, a sentence which was executed at Tarsus. Numerous attempts of the Arabs to acquire Cyprus were but temporarily successful. The Byzantine Emperors never failed to recover possession of the island from the invaders Phocas, who reigned from 602 A.D. till 610, made Cyprus a province of his empire, and placed it under the command of a duke, or military leader. During the kalifate of Othman, his lieutenant Moavyah invaded the island, and, A.D. 648 g, returned with seventy ships laden with booty. The Arabs retained the island for a short time only. The Emperor Justinian the Second made, we are told, a serious attempt to transfer the
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INTRODUCTION. 31 population en masse, so as to leave Cyprus a desert; this was in the year A.D. 691. In A.D. 726, Leo the Third recovered the island for the empire; it was again in the hands of the Arabs during the reign of the Kalif Haroun-el-Reshid, A.D. 803, who were again expelled in 964 by the Christians. The Duke of Cyprus, being to some extent independent of Byzantium, took advantage of the oft-recurring weakness or necessities of the empire to endeavour to throw off the yoke, but these revolts were never fortunate. Cyprus was a frequent halting-place of the Crusaders on their way from the West to the East, and more than one leader of these expeditions found a grave in this island. Among them was Guelph, the fourth Duke of Bavaria, who in 1101 died in Cyprus; four years later the same fate befell Eric, the first King of Denmark, and in 1148, Amedeus, Count of Maurianne and Savoy, joined this company of the dead. In ngo, Isaac Comnenos, fated to be the last Duke of Cyprus, was so notoriously cruel, that the Byzantine Emperor, Isaac Angelus, on more than one occasion strongly remonstrated with his harsh vassal,. but with little or no success. A new figure now appeared in Cyprus in the person of Richard the First, King of England, who, while on his way to the Holy Land in 1191, ascertained that some of his soldiers, shipwrecked on the island, had been robbed by the subjects of Comnenos, and that his sister, and Berengaria his betrothed bride, had been insulted by the Duke. Richard landed with troops near Amathus, took that city without much difficulty, and entirely destroyed it. A few days later, the English and the Cypriotes met in battle in the plain of Mesaoria, near the ancient Tremithus; the latter were soon defeated, and the Duke was taken prisoner. Richard loaded his prisoner with silver chains, deprived
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him of his dignity, and carrying him away in captivity, sold the island to the Knights Templars. These soldiers of the Cross used their appanage with so little wisdom and restraint, that, induced by the complaints of the natives, King Richard resumed his rights to the island, and sold it again to Guy of Lusignan, a French Crusader, who thereupon, in 1192, founded the new kingdom of Cyprus, having not long before this event lost his kingdom of Jerusalem at the hands of Salaclin, who had in 1187 defeated him in the battle of Tiberias. The Lusignan dynasty held peaceful possession of the island until- 1372, when King Peter the Second entertained several Genoese and Venetians of eminence at Nicosia on his coronation day. These guests quarrelled about precedence, and appealed to the king to decide the point at issue. The Genoese were, it is said, so highly offended by a verdict which was adverse to their pretensions, that they proposed to slay King Peter during the feast to which he had invited them and their rivals. Informed of the murderous intention of his guests, the king caused the malcontents to be thrown from the windows of his palace, or otherwise slain, and ordered that every subject of Genoa should be put to death. This monstrous command was, unfortunately for Peter, only too faithfully obeyed. The Republic of Genoa, highly exasperated by this treatment of her citizens, immediately proceeded to punish Lusignan by despatching a considerable fleet to Cyprus, under the command of the admiral Pietro Pregoso. This officer, after several engagements, captured the city of Pamagosta, and carried away Jacopo Lusignan, the king's uncle, and Lieutenant Governor of the island. In 13/4 Peter married Valentine, daughter of Bernabo Visconti, Duke of Milan, and died in the vear 1382.
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INTRODUCTION. 33 When this event happened, the nobles of Cyprus sent an embassy to Genoa and obtained the release of Lusignan and made him king. The Genoese continued to hold and garrison Famagosta, which they strongly fortified in order to ensure their hold on the island. The son of Jacopo bore the same name, and succeeded his father in 1398. Having been captured by Barsbay, Sultan of Egypt, in 1426, the second Jacopo obtained his freedom on condition of paying tribute to Egypt, thus reviving a practice which obtained more than two thousand years before, and he died in 1452, leaving two children, John or Jano, and Agnes. The latter married a prince of the house of Savoy. The former succeeded his father on the throne of Cyprus, and inherited effeminacy, indolence, and selfishness, the vices of his predecessors. He had, however, been fortunate in obtaining the hand of Helena Paleologos, niece of the Emperor of Constantinople, who by effecting some popular reforms, proved capable of reigning. She died much lamented in Cyprus; her husband died in 1456, and Carlotta, their daughter, was the last legitimate descendant of the Lusignans. King John of Cyprus, however, left a natural son named James, who while a youth had been made Archbishop of Cyprus. Carlotta married, first, one of the sons of the King of Portugal, and it is said caused him to be poisoned b.ecause he had endeavoured to abrogate certain laws which Queen Helena had made in favour of the Greek clergy. The second husband of Queen Carlotta was Louis of Savoy, who proved unequal to a contest at arms with James, the natural son of King John just mentioned, and a man of great ability, who was highly popular with the natives of the island, and who, becoming impatient at the presence of a stranger on the throne of his father, united in a revolt with
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some of the chief persons of Nicosia, with whose aid he intended to expel the Savoyard prince from power and from the island. Carlotta, informed of the object of her enemies, endeavoured to arrest her brother in his own archiepiscopal palace, but he, divesting himself of his priestly robes, fled in disguise to the nearest port, Cerynia, and from thence, assisted by his partisans, passed into Egypt, where he solicited the protection of the Sultan. This ruler assuring himself that the young rebel would, if installed king of the island, pay the tribute already due and continue it, furnished the Cypriote archbishop with money and troops, with which aid James soon returned to Cyprus, and after overcoming the by no means strong resistance of Carlotta's husband, was proclaimed king, with the title of James the Second. Before dismissing his mercenary troops the new monarch captured Famagosta from the Genoese, and compelled them to leave the island. This success greatly increased his popularity among the natives, who naturally disliked to see foreign troops occupying one of their most important cities. He then shrewdly allied himself with Venice as a powerful patron, capable of opposing Genoa. With this purpose, and in order to secure an heir to his throne and thus perpetuate the blood of the Lusignans which he claimed to inherit, this king determined to marry. It is probable that his illegitimate birth indisposed him to seek a bride of royal blood. He had seen the miniature portrait of a niece of Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman at his court, and fell in love with her. He must have had some correspondence with her, as he seemed to have understood the hint given him by the Venetian doge, Christopher Moro, in a letter dated July, 1469, complaining of his trifling with the affections of Catherine Cornaro. On the receipt of this letter James asked
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formally the hand of this noble maiden from the Senate of Venice, a request which with a gravity suitable to the nature of the proceedings was granted. A dowry of a hundred thousand gold ducats was bestowed on the bride. She was adopted as a daughter of the State, and sent to Cyprus with a splendid retinue. The political and matrimonial arrangement which was thus brought about was not fated to endure very lon£.O In 147^I / *-'the new king*-Jdied, leavingO his vvoun«-O and beautiful wife to direct the realm in the interest of their unborn heir. Two months subsequent to her husband's decease Catherine gave birth to a son, who received the name of his father, was crowned king of the island, and before he was twelve months old followed his father to the tomb. The royal office, if the testament of King James had been respected, or the wishes of the Cypriotes consulted, would have devolved upon one of his three natural sons, but such a thing would not have suited the Venetian policy, consequently Loredano, with the powerful fleet then wintering in the island, received orders to recognise Catherine without delay as the Queen of Cyprus. Ferdinand, King of Naples and Sicily, also seemed to have a longing eye for Cyprus, and sent ambassadors to the young widow, offering her consolation, and at the same time the hand of his son. Catherine, whether or not guided in the matter by the influence of Venice, declined to accept the Prince, and notwithstanding the efforts of other wooers, remained unmarried. Catherine thus reigned alone for sixteen years. During that time the Senate of Venice tried in vain to induce her to abdicate in favour of her native country. At last, in 1488, disgusted at so many intrigues, and recognising the impossibility of holding
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the crown much longer, she was persuaded by the Venetian Ambassador, Giorgio Cornaro, who was her own brother, to abdicate in favour of Venice. While these events were taking place in Cyprus, the unfortunate but heroic Carlotta died in Rome (1487), bestowing in solemn manner the kingdom of Cyprus on Charles, Duke of Savoy and his heirs, who from that time assumed the title of Kings of Cyprus. The Admiral Francesco Prioli accepted the island in the name of Venice, with ceremonies which had been designed beforehand, to give a popular colour to an accomplished fact. The Cypriote nobility was dissatisfied, but unable to oppose this change of Government. Disturbances took place on this occasion at Nicosia and some other places, but they were of no consequence. At Famagosta, in a church now used as a granary and stable by the Turks, I saw in 1874 some fragments of a marble slab, which bore an inscription of great interest in connection with the last hours of the long existing realm of Cyprus. On the upper part of the slab is carved in low relief the winged lion of St. Mark and a view of Famagosta; the other portion had been broken in pieces, and used for the repair of the stable; though much worn by the animals' hoofs, the inscription could be made out, and ran thus,— '• FKANY/.SW DK PRIUI.IS VKXET/E CL.\SSI lMi>F.R<7///V Dm MARCI \vssitluin CVPRI /i'LICITKR KRECTU.M KS/ 1488, 28 The ex-Queen Catherine started for Venice early in 1489, accompanied by Giorgio Cornaro and the three illegitimate sons of her husband, who by order of Venice had to leave Cyprus.
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INTRODUCTION. 37 The Doge Barbarigo with the whole Senate went to receive Catherine on her arrival at Venice, and during her stay in that city she was splendidly entertained; the beautiful town of Asolo, with all its dependencies and revenue, was assigned to her in exchange for her realm; in Asolo she lived for many years, the centre of no little romantic sentiment, and some legends which yet survive. There she ended her days. The Republic of Venice retained Cyprus for only eighty-two years. During this time the island was visited by several calamities. In 1492 and 1542 many of the towns were destroyed by earthquakes. In 1544 locusts made their appearance in such large numbers, that they destroyed all existing vegetation, and for two jyears the inhabitants had to be fed with provisions imported from abroad. In 1547 it rained so extraordinarily that the rivers were changed into torrents, and the plain of Mesaoria into a lake; no crop could be raised that year, and the population suffered as much as from the locusts. But the greatest calamity that threatened Cyprus, was the increasing po\ver of the Turks, and the advance they were making in Asia and Africa. More than once already had Turkish pirates entered some of her ports and ravaged the neighbouring towns with impunity as a prelude of what was soon to follow. Venice, informed of these excursions, decided to send Savorniani with a staff of engineers to repair the fortresses of Cyprus. Famagosta and Cerynia were repaired sufficiently to resist a regular siege, the others were dismantled as beyond repair. The walls of the city of Nicosia were reduced considerably in extent. In 1570 Selim II. asked Venice to cede to him the island of Cyprus, and upon her refusal he began to make extensive preparations to take it by force. This news spread consternation among all the
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Christian populations along the shores of the Mediterranean. Pope Pius V. vainly attempted another crusade by calling Europe to arms; much time was lost in conferences and negotiations, and no energetic measures were adopted. Venice, trembling, fortified herself at home, and forgot or was unable to send troops to garrison the fortresses repaired by Savorniani. The Turks lost no time in sending from Rhodes and Negropont a fleet of 360 vessels to conquer Cyprus. On the ist of July, 1570, the Turks landed in the neighbourhood of Limassol, without any opposition, an army of 100,000 men, composed of 70,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, and 200 cannon, under the command of Lala Mustafa. While the heavy artillery was being landed, his irregular cavalry scoured the country and ravaged all the towns. In the latter part of July Mustafa Pasha, with his whole army, had begun the siege of Nicosia, garrisoned only by 10,000 men of different nationalities and religion. The defence was badly conducted, yet the Turks spent seven weeks in capturing the city, entering it on the gth of September, after several desperate assaults. For a whole week the city was given up to the ferocity of the captors, and the scenes of horror w^hich followed beggar description. Twenty thousand persons of both sexes were pitilessly butchered, and two thousand youths carried away into captivity. On the I5th of September, Mustafa Pasha started to besiege Famagosta, the last stronghold which still defied the barbarous Osmanli. The place was defended by Venetian troops, who, though only 7,000 in number, resisted for a long time, always in the hope of receiving assistance from their mother country. The efforts of Venice to help Famagosta amounted to next to nothing. On the 2gth of July, after a siege of nearly ten months' duration, when
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INTRODUCTION. 39 all the provisions and ammunition were exhausted, and most of the troops maimed or killed, the heroic commander General Bragadino displayed the white flag, and proposed his conditions of surrender. These were eagerly accepted by the treacherous Mustafa; hostages were exchanged; Turkish vessels, as stipulated, entered the port of Famagosta, and took on board all those who wished to leave the island; nothing remained but the formality of delivering the keys of the city to the victor. On the 5th of August General Bragadino, accompanied by his lieutenants Baglioni, Martinengo, and Quirini, went to the Turkish camp, and was politely received by Mustafa. After the delivery of the keys and when General Bragadino had risen to take leave, the vile Turk asked him for special hostages for the safe return from Candia of the Turkish vessels which were to convey him and his men thither; Bragadino refused this, as not having been stipulated in the accepted conditions of his surrender. Then Mustafa accused him of bad faith, and of having put to death fifty Turkish pilgrims after he had surrendered, which was indignantly denied by Bragadino. The Pasha, becoming enraged, ordered the four Venetians to be put to death, and in a few minutes General Baglioni, Martinengo, and Quirini were executed in the presence of Bragadino, for whom a more terrible death was reserved; the executioner cut off his nose and ears: three times he was made to lay his head on the block, as if to be beheaded, then, heavily chained, was thrown into a dark dungeon and left for nine days in that miserable condition. On the tenth day, by order of Mustafa, Bragadino was brought out of prison and made to carry earth tor the repair of the fortifications during several hours, after which, more dead than alive, the heroic soldier
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was tied to a stake, and in the presence of the ferocious Mustafa was flayed alive. His skin, stuffed with hay, was sent with the heads of the other three Venetians as presents to the Sultan. The same bloody scenes which had occurred at Nicosia were repeated at Famagosta, though it appears that the rage of the Turks at this place was more particularly directed against the Roman Catholics; the people on board the Turkish vessels, instead of being brought to Candia, as it had been stipulated, were landed at Constantinople and sold as slaves. Thus Cyprus was conquered, and is doomed to remain a part of the Turkish Empire as long as enlightened Christian Powers uphold, by their jealousies, such an impracticable and monstrous government. Terra cotta Vast from Citium, inscribed KHTHAC. Height 8j|- inches