Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/785

Rh C Y P E U S 749 island, sometimes called New Paphos, in order to distinguish it from the more ancient Phoenician city of the name, called in the days of Strabo Palas Paphos, which was one of the principal seats of the worship of Astarte, the Phoenician Venus ; 6. Marium, afterwards called Arsinoe, on the north coast, at a short distance from the promontory of Acamas ; 7. Soli, on the same coast, further east ; 8. Kerynea, which still retains its ancient site and name as Tzerinia ; 9. Lapathus, or Lapethus, on the same coast, intermediate between the two cities last mentioned. Others, however, assign this ninth place to Chytri, a town of the interior, on the road from Salamis to Kerynea, and it is likely that the sovereign cities were not always the same. Several other towns are mentioned by Strabo and Ptolemy, which were apparently in earlier times subject to those above enumerated. Idalium and Golgos, the names of which are celebrated from their connection with the worship of Venus, seem to have been merely sanctuaries or holy places, which had grown up around the temples of the goddess, and, in Greek times at least, were never towns of importance. After the death of Alexander, the possession of Cyprus, so important from its position and on account of its inexhaustible forests, became an object of contention among his successors. After various vicissitudes it passed into the hands of Ptolemy, king of- Egypt ; but in 306 B.C. a great effort to recover it was made by Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, who reduced the whole of the rest of the inland and laid siege to the capital city of Salamis. The attempt of Ptolemy, who arrived with a great fleet, to raise the siege, led to one of the most memorable naval battles in all antiquity, in which Ptolemy was utterly defeated ; and Salamis, with all the rest of Cyprus, passed into the power of Demetrius. He did not, however, long retain his new acquisition ; the island was recovered by Ptolemy in 295 B.C., and continued thenceforth to form one of the most valuable possessions of the Greek monarchs of Egypt. It was generally placed under the government of a man of the highest rank, who was often a kinsman of the Egyptian king ; and, during the dissensions of the royal family which marked the declining period of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Cyprus was more than once held by one of the rival candidates as an independent sovereignty. In this manner it was governed as a separate kingdom by Ptolemy Lathyrus for not less than 18 years (from 107 to 89 B.C.), and it was held by a younger brother of Ptolemy Auletes, in 58 B.C., when it was determined by the Romans to dis possess him, an act of shameless aggression, which was proposed by the tribune Clodius, and reluctantly carried into effect by Cato. From this time Cyprus became a Roman province ; it was at first united with Cilicia, but afterwards was constituted as a separate government. The most remarkable event in the history of Cyprus, while it was under the Roman empire, was a great revolt of the Jews, who had established themselves there in large numbers, in which they are said to have destroyed not less than 240,000 of the other inhabitants (J17 A.D.). Christianity, which had been introduced into the island by St Paul, quickly rose to a flourishing condition, and not less than thirteen bishoprics were established in the island. After the division of the Roman empire Cyprus naturally passed, with all the neighbouring countries, into the hands of the Eastern or Byzantine emperors, to whom it continued subject, with brief intervals, for more than seven centuries. In 646 the Arabs under the caliph Othman made them selves masters of the island, and destroyed the city of Salamis, which had until that time continued to be the capital. But it was recovered by the Greek emperors two years afterwards ; and, though again conquered by the Arabs under the reign of Haroun el. Raschid (802), it did not long remain in their hands, and lapsed again into the power of the Byzantine empire. In 1184 Isaac Comnenus, the nephew of the reigning emperor, established himself in possession of Cyprus as an independent sovereignty; but during the third crusade (1195) it was wrested from his hands by Richard I., king of England, who bestowed it upon Guy de Lusignan, the titular king of Jerusalem, as some compensation for the loss of the holy city. From this time Cyprus was governed for nearly three centuries by a succession of kings of the same dynasty, who introduced into the island the feudal system and the other institutions of Western Europe. During the latter part of this period, indeed, the Genoese made themselves masters of Famagosta which had risen in place of Salamis to be the chief commercial city in the island and retained possession of it for a considerable time ; but it was recovered by King James II., and the whole island was reunited under his rule. His marriage with Catherine Cornaro, a Venetian lady of rank, was designed to secure the support of the powerful republic of Venice, but had the effect after a few years, in consequence of his own death and that of his son James III., of transferring the sovereignty of the island to his new allies. Catherine, feeling herself unable to con tend alone with the increasing power of the Turks, was induced to abdicate the sovereign power in favour of the Venetian republic, which at once entered into full possession of the island (1487). The Venetians retained their acquisition for about eighty years, notwithstanding the neighbourhood of the Turks. It was not till 1570 that the latter, under Selim II., made a serious attempt to conquer the island, in which they landed an army of 60,000 men. The greater part of the island was reduced with little difficulty ; Nicosia, the capital, was taken after a siege of 45 days, and 20,000 of its inhabitants put to the sword. Pamagosta alone made a gallant and protracted resistance, and did not capitulate till after a siege of nearly a year s duration (August 1571). The terms of the capitulation were shamefully violated by tho Turks, who put to death the governor Bragadino with the most cruel torments. Since that time Cyprus has remained in the hands of the Turks, and its history has been almost a blank. A serious insurrection broke out in 1764, but was speedily suppressed; another in 1823 became the occasion of a frightful massacre of the Greek population. Mean while the prosperity of the island was continually declining, it is only of late years that the increasing commerce of the western nations of Europe with the Levant has given some stimulus to trade, and encouraged the cultivation of the natural productions of an island which, under more favour able circumstances; might be one of the richest in the Mediterranean. Though Cyprus has been visited and described by several travellers among others by Dr Pococke (Description of the East, Lond. 1743), by Mariti ( ViaggiperVisola Cipro, 1769), and more recently by M. Seiff (Keisen in der Asiatischen Turkei, 8vo, Leipsic, 1875) there is no full and com prehensive account of it, such as we possess of Crete- and many parts of Asia Minor. The work of Engel (Kypros : cine Monographic, 2 vols. 8vo, Berlin, 1841) is a diligent compilation of all that could be gathered from ancient authorities concerning the geography, history, and mythology of the island, but was not based upon any original researches. Its geology and natural history are still very imperfectly known, and its antiquities had, until lately, been almost entirely neglected. But within the last few years extensive excavations have been carried on in different parts of the island especially at Golgos, Idalium, and Curium by Mr Lang and General de Cesnola, which have brought to light a vast number of statues and other works