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A History of Cyprus
Sir George Francis Hill (1867–1948), was perhaps best known as a numismatist, although his scholarly interests and accomplishments included a range of time periods and subjects. A classicist by training, Hill built his career at the British Museum’s department of coins and medals. In his forty-three years there he produced volumes on coins of antiquity; Greek history and art; coins, heraldry, and iconography of medieval and Renaissance Italy; and treasure troves. In 1931 Hill became the Museum’s director and principal librarian, the first archaeologist to hold this post. His four-volume History of Cyprus (1940–52) ranged from Cyprus’s earliest years to the twentieth century, and became the standard text on the subject. It is a valuable resource for scholars of the country, of antiquity and of the Mediterranean world. Volume 1 describes the land of Cyprus before unravelling its history from the Stone Age to the Crusades.
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PREFACE
The interest which Cyprus has recently aroused in many quarters makes it needless to apologize for putting forth an account of its history. Prudence, perhaps, might have suggested waiting until the present activity in excavation and research should quiet down, and their results become more definite. On the other hand many, like the writer, must feel that some sort of guide through the maze of authorities is desirable: and it was the wish to clear up in his own mind the facts about a subject which has interested him for more than thirty years, that prompted him to undertake such a compilation. More than a compilation it does not pretend to be: yet, even so, it has proved to be a task more arduous and complex and even less within his capacity than he had expected; and it will perhaps be felt that he has done little more than indicate the many problems, without solving any of them.
The main difficulty has lain in the fact that Cyprus has had no continuous history of its own, except to some degree in the Lusignan period. What light we have on it is chiefly a pale and shifting reflection from the activities of the great powers which from age to age have found it necessary to deal with it on their way to some more important objective. Any picture of its fortunes must therefore be patchy and ill-composed, its lights and shadows forced and perhaps often misleading. For the same reason, to set its history in true perspective one would need a mastery of the history of all the peoples who came into contact with it, whether as colonists or as conquerors. Failing that qualification, unattainable in this age of specialization, its historian must be content to submit his sketch to the most competent specialists of his acquaintance, and adopt their corrections. This has been done throughout.
No mere list of acknowledgements would indicate the degree of the author's indebtedness to those who, as will partly appear from the footnotes, have been consulted and have ungrudgingly helped at every turn. Such a list of names is therefore not given. But a general expression of gratitude to former colleagues in nearly every Department of the British Museum, to the officials of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities, and finally to those, to whose kind offices are owing the photographs from which the illustrations have been made, cannot be omitted here.
The present volume takes the history of the island down to its conquest by Richard Lion Heart. With that episode a new perspective opens, so that it seems a suitable point at which to pause. A word may be permitted on the spelling of proper names and technical terms. After much consideration the attempt to attain consistency was abandoned in favour of the avoidance of pedantry. Generally speaking, Latin forms have been used, except for the shorter names of places and quite modern names to which every visitor to Cyprus is accustomed, such as Troodos. As to k, it has been kept occasionally, but the uncouth kh combination is usually avoided. Such inconsistencies, while they will not please many, will it is hoped offend fewer than uniformity would have done.
In oriental names intelligibility to the ordinary reader, rather than accuracy and consistency, has been aimed at, and diacritical marks avoided as far as possible except in the footnotes. The dedication records, for those who can interpret it, the writer's obligation to friends, by whose companionship and aid on two visits to the island, in 1934 and 1938, much that would otherwise have been difficult or tiresome was rendered easy and delightful.
GEORGE HILL
London, August 1939
THE LAND
Soon after the British occupation of Cyprus in 1878, a German archaeologist wrote: He who would become and remain a great power in the East must hold Cyprus in his hand. That this is true, is proved by the history of the world during the last three and a half millennia, from the time of Thutmes III of Egypt to the days of Queen Victoria.1 Since he wrote, nothing has happened, on land, on the sea, or in the air, to lessen the force of his words.
The historian is reminded of them at every turn, beginning with his realization of the geographical position of the island, which lies towards the N.E. angle of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, between lat. 34° 34' and 350 42' N. and long. 320 16' and 340 36' E. of Greenwich. Asia Minor and Syria can be seen from it with the naked eye, Beirut, Haifa, Port Said and Alexandria are within the sailor's or flier's easy reach. The third largest island in the Mediterranean (being a good deal smaller than Sicily and Sardinia), it has an area, according to the official figures, of 3584 square miles. It is thus somewhat larger than the two English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk combined.3 Its greatest length, from W.S.W. to E.N.E. (i.e. from Paphos harbour or C. Drepanum to C. St Andreas), is 138 miles; its greatest breadth, from N. to S. (i.e. from C. Kormakiti to C. Gata), 60 miles. How and when did the island come to be there?
From the point of view of the geologist, it is not very ancient.2 The oldest rocks, known as the Trypanian series, are attributed to the Cretaceous and early Eocene period. They probably underlie the whole island, and appear as the backbone of the compact limestones and marbles of the Kerynia range along the north coast. Contrary to the old belief, these marbles are both various and admirable, and all the marbles used in the buildings of ancient Cyprus, with one exception, can be matched in the beds of the Kerynia range.1 These limestones must have formed an ancient land surface during the greater part of the Eocene period, as a result of uplift.
Then came a period of subsidence; and in the sea below which the land sank were deposited, first, the products of erosion—the Kythrean sandstones and shales, probably of Oligocene age, which lie disconformably on the Trypanian series, and line the flanks of the Kerynia range, running out along the Karpass peninsula. With the complete submergence of the land and the development of clearer water conditions, a series of chalky limestones and marls were deposited; these comprise the Idalian series, of Miocene age, which overlie the Kythrean in conformable sequence.2
This Idalian series probably, at one time, covered the whole area of what is now the island. By the time these chalky deposits were being made, the water must have been of moderately great depth. But then followed, towards the end of the Miocene, a period^ of earth-movement and igneous activity, during which there was uplift and folding of the sediments, accompanied by the intrusion of dyke-rocks and the extrusion of basaltic lavas. Mountain ranges originated at this time; in the north the Kerynia range, which contains igneous intrusions here and there among the limestones and marbles already mentioned; in the south and west the great massif of Troodos, which is largely composed of intrusive and volcanic rocks.
Cyprus must at this time have been part of Asia, the Kerynia range and Troodos, with the plain between them, being continuous with Mts Amanus and Casius and the Lower Orontes valley. During the later part of the Pliocene period the land sank again, but not so deep as before; the sea covered the plain, but the heights of Troodos and the Kerynia range appeared as islands. The best of the notably fine building stones of Cyprus are from the shelly limestones of the Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits. A new movement of elevation, or fall in sea-level, at the beginning of Pleistocene times, brought Cyprus to the surface again. It seems probable that connexion with the mainland existed in the direction of the Gulf of Alexandretta. The vertebrates found in the cave-breccias of the island presumably made their way from the mainland by this connexion.
From the high points of the mountains came floods which began the carving out of the deep valleys which form so picturesque a feature of the present landscape. The washings which they brought down, deposited on the lower levels (sometimes to a depth of seven metres), gave to portions of the central plain its present great fertility. A final subsidence relative to sea-level left the island within its present limits, more or less. It has been suggested, somewhat hazardously, that this subsidence, or some phase of it, is still celebrated by the annual Whitmonday festival of the Kataklysmos.1 Raised beaches round the island testify to intermittent changes in sea-level since the main subsidence.
Such is the position and general lay-out of the land. Its geographical relation to the mainland (the advantages and disadvantages of which will become apparent as this history proceeds) may now be more precisely denned. The outstretched finger of the Karpass points significantly to Syria, with which the history which we are going to read has always been so intimately bound up. The north coast of the island is generally described as being forty miles from that of Cilicia (but that is between nearest points). Cilicia is indeed generally visible, and on clear days so are the summits of Taurus, some eighty miles away. From the extreme eastern point of the island to Syria it is less than seventy miles, and on clear days from certain heights, for instance, from Stavrovouni, Lebanon is discernible. With favouring winds the sailor can reach Syria in a day.
On the other hand, Egypt is much farther off. From Larnaka to Port Said is more than 260 miles; so that relations with Egypt naturally did not begin so early as with Anatolia and Syria.1 The two mountain ranges already mentioned, with a broad plain between them, characterize the relief. Of the two ranges the northern, with its jagged outline, is particularly impressive. It runs, at a distance of some three miles from the shore, for about sixty miles, from above Lapithos on the west to Kantara Castle on the east, from which point it falls away along the Karpass peninsula. For want of a name of its own it is known as the Kerynia range. Its heights shelter the plain from the north, taking much of the moisture from the winds which blow from Anatolia. Its highest peak,2 Kyparissovouno, above Larnaka tis Lapithou, measures 3 3 5 7 ft.; but its most striking summit is'' Five Fingers'', Pentadaktylos (2430 ft.). The castles of St Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara (Pi. XV) stand romantically on peaks of 2380, 3131 and 2068 ft. respectively.
These sites, chosen doubtless for strategic reasons, command wide and wonderful views over the sea and in other directions. The chief pass from the plain to the sea through this range is on the modern road from Nicosia to Kerynia (1250 ft.); another road runs north from Leukoniko, over a low pass (850 ft.) under the western flank of Mt Olymbos, providing the quickest access to the north coast from Salamis and accounting for the many ancient settlements in the neighbourhood of Akanthou,1 while the western end of the range is turned by the road from Nicosia through Myrtou to Lapithos. It would be natural to identify the Mt Olymbos just mentioned with the Olympus, of which Strabo says: "the mountain ridge is called Olympus, and has a temple of Aphrodite Akraia, which women are not allowed to enter or see". But there is general agreement to place the ancient Mt Olympus at the extremity instead of at the root of the Karpass.
Strabo's account of this part of the island is, however, by no means satisfactory.2 The narrow strip of land between the range and the sea is very fertile, and, with its romantic mountain background, this is perhaps the most attractive region in the island. Places such as Lapithos and Karavas have fine springs of fresh water. The finest of all the springs in the island, however, issues from the southern flank of Pentadaktylos, appearing at Kythrea. It now feeds a multitude of local mills; but its waters once, by means of an aqueduct, supplied the needs of Salamis, some twentythree miles distant. The source from which this and other springs derive is probably local, depending on the rainfall in the Kerynian hills, although the theory that they come from the Anatolian mountains across the sea is not so absurd as some have supposed. 3
The central plain, commonly but loosely called the Mesaria4 or Mesarea, consisting mostly of sedimentary limestones, stretches for some sixty miles from Morphou Bay on the west to Famagusta Bay on the east. Remains of the harder rocks, which have mostly been eroded, form here and there striking "table-mountains", which were sometimes used for early settlements. The most notable of these are at Leondari Vouno, south-east of Nicosia, and C. Greco (Pedalium). The plain is now treeless (save for modern planting), but the soil, as already noted, is very fertile, producing in most seasons fine crops of grain.1 The general aspect is arid, except in spring, when it is clad in the green of the young crops and a wonderful garment of flowers. But in old times (by which Eratosthenes, our informant, probably means the period of the earlier Greek settlers) the plains were so heavily wooded and covered with bush that agriculture was impossible.
The growth was to some degree kept down by cutting timber, partly for smelting the copper and silver ore from the mines, partly for shipbuilding; but, this being of little avail, leave was given, to whoso wished and was able, to clear and keep the land as his own property free of taxation. The two larger streams of the Mesarea, the Pedias (ancient Pediaeus) and the Yialias,2 both rising in the eastern portion of the Troodos massif, flow, the former past Nicosia, the latter past Dali (Idalium), to the bay of Salamis. They have little water except in flood-time (and then too much). Another stream, with its many tributaries, drains the western part of the plain and flows into Morphou Bay. Its ancient name is uncertain; but it may have been Satrachus.3 Some short streams which, descending from Mt Troodos, water the southern strip of coastland, may be mentioned, e.g.
the Kouris (ancient Lycus) issuing near Curium (Episkopi); and the Diarrhizos, which issues by Kouklia, the site of Old Paphos.1 The Basilopotamos, Basileus, or Great River (Vasilopotamo, Vasilikos), issuing by Mari, is associated with the landing of St Helena. Some have identified it with the Tetios of Ptolemy, though that name is claimed also for the insignificant brook which flows past Arpera and Kiti.a Mt Troodos (Trogodos in antiquity) and its foothills occupy the greater part of the southern and western portion of the island, the thousand feet contour on the south and west being seldom more than four miles from the coast.
Its core of igneous rocks is surrounded by a girdle of tertiary limestones and marls. Its highest point, Chionistra,3 measures 6403 ft., and was from antiquity a sanctuary; in the Middle Ages a chapel of St Michael stood there. On the heights the snow lies late into spring. At the place Troodos itself, at 5600 ft., there is now the summer station of the Government, and the mountain is rapidly becoming popular as a summer resort from Egypt and Palestine. It is tempting to identify Chionistra with Strabo's second Mt Olympus, "the breast-shaped", as is commonly done. But Stavrovouni, an isolated peak far to the east, though only 2258 ft. high, is so striking in its contour, that its claim to the name Olympus has been strongly urged.4 It is in the foothills of the Troodos range that copper, the most important product of the island, was mined in antiquity, especially along the coast district from Marium to Soli, and also on the north-east slope at Tamassus,1 the Homeric Temese, now probably at Politiko.
Near Marium (Polis tis Chrysochou), at Limni-Pelathousa, and near Leuka, at Skouriotissa and Mavrovouni, copper is being worked by modern enterprise.2 Nearly all the modern copper-mining leases and prospecting permits are on the extreme edges of the igneous area. In antiquity, long before the Roman period, indeed as early as the second millennium, copper was exported from this region, both in the form of ore and in ingots of more or less refined metal. Ore and scoriae of the same composition as those found at Skouriotissa have been found not only at Enkomi in Cyprus itself, but at Ras Shamra on the Syrian coast, in deposits of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries. 3 And we shall see that copper, both unrefined and refined, was sent to Egypt from Asy, which may be Cyprus, in the time of Thutmose III.
There is some uncertainty about the extent to which iron was mined in Cyprus in antiquity, although ore in the form of pyrites occurs in considerable quantities in the rocks of Troodos.4 Gold, which according to a fragment of Pseudo-Aristotle was found on Mt Boucasa in the Troodos range,1 is once more being produced in the island in small but payable quantity. Silver, as we have already seen from Eratosthenes, was also anciently mined, and this may account for the large issues of silver coinage in the Ptolemaic age.3 Next in importance to copper now seems to be the short-fibred asbestos (Greek amiantos) which was mined in antiquity, and is now extensively worked at Amiandos, a few miles east of Troodos. The trees of the highlands and foothills are most commonly the Aleppo pine and the black pine; the once famous cedars have almost disappeared.3
In antiquity, Cyprus was one of the chief sources of shipbuilding timber in the eastern Mediterranean.4 There are also cypresses and an evergreen oak endemic in the island (Quercus alnifolia Cypria). The all-useful carob is largely cultivated and its bean exported—this is indeed now the most important export crop. The stately eucalyptus trees were first planted since the British occupation; but the attempts at re-afforestation have had disappointing results, 5 mainly because of the goats, which are more precious in the eyes of the Cypriote than any speculative advantage to be gained by the cultivation of timber. On the western and southern slopes of Mt Troodos olive,1 vine and carob are cultivated to a greater extent and with more success than in other parts of the island.
The wine2 of Cyprus, though not without reputation in antiquity, became really famous from the time of the Second Crusade. The best culture was on the estates of the Knights Hospitallers, especially on the Grand Commandery of Kolossi; hence the name Commanderia given to the finest quality, which is said to be made in exactly the same way as it was centuries ago in various places on the slopes of Troodos. When fine, it resembles Madeira, and indeed the Madeira vine itself is actually derived from Cypriote stock. In the flat, low ground in the neighbourhood of Larnakaand Limassol, where once were lagoons, are found the great salt-lakes,3 from the dried-up beds of which a large supply of salt is obtained.
Famous in antiquity, the salt industry nourished greatly in the Frankish period, providing the main revenue of the island. It now supplies merely local needs. The Larnaka lake is, from this point of view, much the more important of the two. The only harbour, properly speaking, in the island is at Famagusta, where a line of rocks and banks, with the help of moles, provides a modest shelter. This is mentioned by Strabo under the name of Arsinoe.
The ancient harbour of Salamis, about four miles to the north, is now filled with sand. The estuary of the Pediaeus must, at the beginning of historical times, have extended far inland, almost, but probably not quite, as far as Enkomi.1 But by 306 B.C. the entrance was narrow, and may not long after have become unfit for naval purposes.2 PseudoScylax, enumerating (probably towards the middle of the fourth century B.C.) the cities of the coast, mentions Greek Salamis (with a closed harbour safe in winter), Carpasia, Kerynia (Kyrenia), Lapethos of the Phoenicians, Soli (this too with a winter harbour)3 , Greek Marium, Amathus4 ("its people are autochthonous"), and adds: "all these have harbours which are deserted". Paphos and Citium he does not even mention.
The roads of Larnaka (which in antiquity had a closed harbour) and Limassol are safe for large vessels except in south-easterly gales. Other small harbours, as at Paphos and Kerynia, must have been much more freely used in the days of smaller shipping than they are now. Thus it has been observed that the harbours of Aphendrika, Ayios Philon (ancient Carpasia, of which the harbour is mentioned by Strabo), Exarchos, Machairiona, Gialousa and many more on the north coast must have served for trade with the opposite coast of Asia Minor, although generally speaking the roadsteads on the southern coast were much more convenient than the northern, which were exposed to the north wind. 5
Strabo also mentions the harbour at Soli and roadsteads or anchorages at Curium and Old Paphos, and a harbour, which must have been tiny, at Leucolla between Salamis and Pedalium.6 A feature of the shore, in the neighbourhood ofPaphos, is the extraordinary production of foam, due to the disintegration of animal and vegetable marine organisms. There can be no doubt that this has a bearing on the myth of the birth of the Cyprian Goddess from the foam of the sea.1
Characteristic, too, of the coast in general, is the large number of striking headlands, which gave to the island one of its ornamental epithets, Cerastis, the "horned".2 It may be doubted whether the prevalent currents in the sea surrounding Cyprus were of much importance in regard to ancient trade relations. The great current which runs north along the Syrian coast, and turns west along the south coast of Asia Minor, has a branch which flows from C. St Andreas to C. Kiti, and may have facilitated the first stage of the Phoenician out voyages; and that which, coming from the west, divides and flows along the north and south coasts may have helped the Greek colonists on their outward way.
But in neither case were they useful to the returning voyager. The climate of Cyprus has had from antiquity an unenviable reputation for excessive heat, which is liable to inconvenience the conduct of anything, from war to excavations;3 probably when it was more thickly wooded there was less drought than there is at present in summer. The thermometer at Nicosia has been known to reach 43*9° C. (ni ° F.),4 exceeding the record for Cairo (42-7° C). But the maximum temperature at Troodos, in the season July to September 1927, was only 26*6° C. (79-9° F.). As in most Mediterranean lands, there is a very dry summer and a rainy winter season, with its maximum in December. Upon the altar of Aphrodite at Paphos, according to ancient legend, rain never fell. Summer drought is still the chief handicap of the cultivator. Since 18 81, modern methods of dealing with his other great enemy, the locust (more effective but less picturesque than those employed in olden days), have reduced the plague to manageable proportions.5
In the course of this history we shall have much opportunity to test the theory of Hippocrates, that the character of a people is determined by the nature of their land, and the saying which Herodotus puts in the mouth of Cyrus, that "soft countries are wont to produce soft men; for it does not belong to the same land to grow admirable fruits and men who are good fighters".1
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