Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/721

Rh evidence of continuity comes from the peculiar Cypriote script, a syllabary related to the linear scripts of Crete and the south Aegean, and traceable in Cyprus to the Mycenaean age. It remained in regular use until the 4th century; before that time the Greek alphabet occurs in Cyprus only in a few inscriptions erected for visitors. In Citium and Idalium, on the other hand, a Phoenician dialect and alphabet were in use from the time of Sargon onward. Sargon’s inscription at Citium is cuneiform.

The culture and art of Cyprus in this Graeco-Phoenician period are well represented by remains from Citium, Idalium, Tamassus, Amathus and Curium; the earlier phases are best represented round Lapathus, Soli, Paphos and Citium; the later Hellenization, at Amathus and Marion-Arsinoë. Three distinct foreign influences may be distinguished: they originate in Egypt, in Assyria, and in the Aegean. The first two predominate earlier, and gradually recede before the last-named. Their effects are best seen in sculpture and in metal work, though it remains doubtful whether the best examples of the latter were made in Cyprus or on the mainland. Among a great series of engraved silver bowls, found mostly in Cyprus, but also as far off as Nineveh, Olympia, Caere and Praeneste, some examples show almost unmixed imitation of Egyptian scenes and devices; in others, Assyrian types are introduced among the Egyptian in senseless confusion; in others, both traditions are merged in a mixed art, which betrays a return to naturalism and a new sense of style, like that of the Idaean bronzes in Crete. From its intermediate position between the art of Phoenicia and its western colonies (so far as this is known) and the earliest Hellenic art in the Aegean, this style has been called Graeco-Phoenician. The same sequence of phases is represented in sculpture by the votive statues from the sanctuaries of Aphrodite at Dali and of Apollo at Vóni and Frángissa; and by examples from other sites in the Cesnola collection; in painting by a rare class of naïvely polychromic vases; and in both by the elaborately coloured terra-cotta figures from the “Toumba” site at Salamis. Gem-engraving and jewelry follow similar lines; pottery-painting for the most part remains geometrical throughout, with crude survivals of Mycenaean curvilinear forms. Those Aegean influences, however, which had been predominant in the later Bronze Age, and had never wholly ceased, revived, as Hellenism matured and spread, and slowly repelled the mixed Phoenician orientalism. Imported vases from the Aegean, of the “Dipylon,” “proto-Corinthian” and “Rhodian” fabrics, occur rarely, and were imitated by the native potters; and early in the 6th century appears the specific influence of Ionia, and still more of Naucratis in the Egyptian delta. For the failure of Assyria in Egypt in 668–664, and the revival of Egypt as a phil-Hellene state under the XXVIth Dynasty, admitted strong Graeco-Egyptian influences in industry and art, and led about 560 to the political conquest of Cyprus by Amasis (Ahmosi) II.; once again Cypriote timber maintained a foreign sea-power in the Levant.

The annexation of Egypt by Cambyses of Persia in 525 was preceded by the voluntary surrender of Cyprus, which formed part of Darius’s “fifth satrapy.” The Greek cities, faring ill under Persia, and organized by Onesilaus of Salamis, joined the Ionic revolt in 500 ; but the Phoenician states, Citium and Amathus, remained loyal to Persia; the rising was soon put down; in 480 Cyprus furnished no less than 150 ships to the fleet of Xerxes; and in spite of the repeated attempts of the Delian League to “liberate” the island, it remained subject to Persia during the 5th century. The occasion of the siege of Idalium by Persians (which is commemorated in an important Cypriote inscription) is unknown. Throughout this period, however, Athens and other Greek states maintained a brisk trade in copper, sending vases and other manufactures in return, and bringing Cyprus at last into full contact with Hellenism. But the Greek cities retained monarchical government throughout, and both the domestic art and the principal religious cults remained almost unaltered. The coins of the Greek dynasts and autonomous towns are struck on a variable standard with a stater of 170 to 180 grs. The principal Greek cities were now Salamis, Curium, Paphos, Marion, Soli, Kyrenia and Khytri. Phoenicians held Citium and Amathus on the south coast between Salamis and Curium, also Tamassus and Idalium in the interior; but the last named was little more than a sanctuary town, like Paphos. At the end of the 5th century a fresh Salaminian League was formed by (q.v.), who became king in 410, aided the Athenian Conon after the fall of Athens in 404, and revolted openly from Persia in 386, after the peace of Antalcidas. Athens again sent help, but as before the Phoenician states supported Persia; the Greeks were divided by feuds, and in 380 the attempt failed; Evagoras was assassinated in 374, and his son Nicocles died soon after. After the victory of Alexander the Great at Issus in 333 all the states of Cyprus welcomed him, and sent timber and ships for his siege of Tyre in 332.

After Alexander’s death in 323 Cyprus, coveted still for its copper and timber, passed, after several rapid changes, to Ptolemy I., king of Egypt. Then in 306 Demetrius Poliorcetes of Macedon overran the whole island, besieged Salamis, and utterly defeated there the Egyptian fleet. Ptolemy, however, recovered it in 295 Under Ptolemaic rule Cyprus has little history. Usually it was governed by a viceroy of the royal line, but it gained a brief independence under Ptolemy Lathyrus (107-89 ), and under a brother of Ptolemy Auletes in 58 The great sanctuaries of Paphos and Idalium, and the public buildings of Salamis, which were wholly remodelled in this period, have produced but few works of art; the sculpture from local shrines at Vóni and Vitsáda, and the frescoed tombstones from Amathus, only show how incapable the Cypriotes still were of utilizing Hellenistic models; a rare and beautiful class of terra-cottas like those of Myrina may be of Cypriote fabric, but their style is wholly of the Aegean. It is in this period that we first hear of Jewish settlements, which later become very populous.

In 58 Rome, which had made large unsecured loans to Ptolemy Auletes, sent M. Porcius Cato to annex the island, nominally because its king had connived at piracy, really because its revenues and the treasures of Paphos were coveted to finance a corn law of P. Clodius. Under Rome Cyprus was at first appended to the province of Cilicia; after Actium (31 ) it became a separate province, which remained in the hands of Augustus and was governed by a legatus Caesaris pro praetore as long as danger was feared from the East. No monuments