Ersin Hussein: e.hussein@warwick.ac.uk
Supervisor: Dr A. Cooley
07.03.2013
Roman Culture and Society: Roman Cyprus
1. Cyprus the hub of the Mediterranean.
Strabo, Geographia, 14.6.5:
In fertility Cyprus is not inferior to any one of the islands, for it produces both good wine and good
oil, and also a sufficient supply of grain for its own use. And at Tamassus there are abundant mines of
copper, in which is found chalcanthite and also the rust of copper, which latter is useful for its
medicinal properties.
Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, 34. 8. 14-15:
Cyprus, too, an island far removed from the mainland, and abounding in harbours, besides having
numerous towns, is made famous by two cities, Salamis and Paphos, the one celebrated for its shrines
of Jupiter, the other for its temple of Venus. This Cyprus is so fertile and so abounds in products of
every kind, that without the need of any help from without, by its native resources alone it builds
cargo ships from the very keel to the topmast sails, and equipping them completely entrusts them to
the deep. Nor am I loth to say that the Roman people in invading that island showed more greed than
justice.
Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 34. 2: In Cyprus, where copper was first discovered, it is also procured
from another stone, which is called "chalcitis".
Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 34. 22: All the species of cadmia1 are of the best quality from the
furnaces of Cyprus.
2. The Roman Annexation of Cyprus.
Key dates:
80 BC 67 BC 59 BC 58 BC 56 BC Plutarch, Cato Minor, 35-36:
...He [Cato] also sent Canidius, one of his friends, to Cyprus in advance, and tried to persuade
Ptolemy to yield his kingdom without fighting, promising that his future life should not be without
wealth and honour, since the Romans would give him a priesthood of the goddess in Paphos. But the
Ptolemy in Cyprus, fortunately for Cato, poisoned himself to death. And since the king was said to
have left much treasure, Cato determined, while sailing himself to Byzantium, to send his nephew
Brutus to Cyprus, since he did not altogether trust Canidius. Then, after reconciling the exiles and
citizens of Byzantium and leaving the city in concord, he sailed to Cyprus.
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A copper ore.
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Ersin Hussein: e.hussein@warwick.ac.uk
Supervisor: Dr A. Cooley
07.03.2013
Dio. Cass. 39.12. 2-3:
They were accordingly angry at him...because when they had bidden him demand back Cyprus from
the Romans or else renounce his friendship for them, he had been unwilling to do so. And since he
could neither persuade nor yet compel them to be quiet, as he had no foreign troops, he fled from
Egypt, and coming to Rome, accused his countrymen of having expelled him from his kingdom.
Dio. Cass. 39.22.3:
Then the Cypriots readily received Cato, expecting to be friends and allies of the Romans instead of
slaves.
3. Early administration, Ptolemaic restoration, and the re-organisation of the province.
Cicero, Ad Atticum, 5.21 and 6.1: summary of the financial exploitation of the city of
Salamis.
•
•
•
Brutus lends the city of Salamis money, he demands repayment with a rate of interest = 48%.
Brutus' agents, Scaptius and Matidius, secure some cavalry and barricade some Salaminians
in their local senate house. Cicero reports that five Salaminians starved to death.
50 BC: The Salamnians are able to pay back their loan at the more reasonable rate of interest
of 12% as negotiated by Cicero.
Strabo, Geographia, 17.3.25:
The division into provinces has varied at different periods, but at present it is that established by
Augustus Cæsar...(Augustus Cæsar) in his first organization of (the Empire) created two consular
governments, namely, (1.) the whole of Africa in possession of the Romans, excepting that part which
was under the authority, first of Juba, but now of his son Ptolemy; and (2.) Asia within the Halys and
Taurus, except the Galatians and the nations under Amyntas, Bithynia, and the Propontis. He
appointed also ten consular governments in Europe and in the adjacent islands. Iberia Ulterior
(Further Spain) about the river Bætis and Celtica Narbonensis (composed the two first). The third was
Sardinia, with Corsica; the fourth Sicily; the fifth and sixth Illyria, districts near Epirus, and
Macedonia; the seventh Achaia, extending to Thessaly, the Ætolians, Acarnanians, and the Epirotic
nations who border upon Macedonia; the eighth Crete, with Cyrenæa; the ninth Cyprus; the tenth
Bithynia, with the Propontis and some parts of Pontus...
4. The cities of Roman Cyprus.
Mitford’s division of Cyprus into districts.
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Ersin Hussein: e.hussein@warwick.ac.uk
Supervisor: Dr A. Cooley
07.03.2013
Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 5.35.129-131:
The Pamphylian Sea contains some islands of little note. The Cilician, besides four others of very
considerable size, has Cyprus, which lies opposite to the shores of Cilicia and Syria, running east and
west; in former times it was the seat of nine kingdoms. ... Its towns are fifteen in number, Neapaphos,
Palæpaphos, Curias, Citium, Corineum, Salamis, Amathus, Lapethos, Solœ, Tamasos, Epidarum,
Chytri, Arsinoë, Carpasimn, and Golgi. The towns of Cinyria, Marium, and Idalium are no longer in
existence.
Nea Paphos.
Maier and Karageorghis (1984), 227, figure no. 208.
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Ersin Hussein: e.hussein@warwick.ac.uk
Supervisor: Dr A. Cooley
07.03.2013
Kourion.
Mitford (1971), Plan 3. The Acropolis of Kourion
Mitford (1971), Plan 2. The Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates
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Ersin Hussein: e.hussein@warwick.ac.uk
Supervisor: Dr A. Cooley
07.03.2013
Salamis.
Mitford and Nicolaou (1974), xvi, Salamis Site Map
5. Religion in Roman Cyprus.
Oath of Allegiance to Tiberius, AD 14. Translation from Mitford (1960), 76:
[By these deities, namely] Our own Aphrodite of the Headland, our own Maiden, our own Apollo of
Hyle, our own Apollo of Keryneia, our own Saving Dioskouroi, the Common Hearth of Cyprus
within the Council House, the Gods and Goddesses of our Fathers that are common to this Island, the
Offspring of Aphrodite, who is the God Caesar Augustus, Rome the Everlasting, and all other Gods
and Goddesses we, ourselves and our Children, [swear] to hearken unto and to obey alike by land and
sea, to regard with loyalty and to worship Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of Augustus, with all his
house, to have the same friends and the same foes as they, To propose the voting of [divine honours]
to Rome and to Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of Augustus, and to the sons of his blood – to these
only, together with the other Gods, and to none other at all. [If we keep this oath, may prosperity be
ours; if we break it, may the opposite befall us].
Tacitus, Annales, 3.62.4:
…The Cypriotes followed with an appeal for three shrines – the oldest erected by their founder Aërias
to the Paphian Venus; the second by his son Amathus to the Amathusian Venus; and a third by
Teucer, exiled by the anger of his father Telamon, to Jove of Salamis…
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Ersin Hussein: e.hussein@warwick.ac.uk
Supervisor: Dr A. Cooley
07.03.2013
Hesiod, Theogony, 191-200:
First she approached holy Cythera; then from there she came to sea-girt Cyprus. And out stepped a
modest and beautiful goddess, and the grass began to grow all round beneath her slender feet. Gods
and men call her Aphrodite, because she was formed in foam, and Chythera, because she approached
Chythera, and Cyprus-born, because she was born in wave-washed Cyprus.
Strabo, Geographia, 14.6.3:
Then to Paphus, which was founded by Agapenor, and has both a harbor and well-built temples. It is
sixty stadia distant from Palaepaphus by land; and on this road men together with women, who also
assemble here from the other cities, hold an annual procession to Palaepaphus. Some say that the
distance from Paphus to Alexandria is three thousand six hundred stadia.
The Sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaipaphos.
Image taken from: http://www.hist.uzh.ch/ag/paphos/
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Ersin Hussein: e.hussein@warwick.ac.uk
Supervisor: Dr A. Cooley
07.03.2013
Tacitus, Historia, 2.2-4:
... So, after coasting Achaia and Asia, leaving the land on his left, he made for the islands of Rhodes
and Cyprus, and then by a bolder course for Syria. Here he conceived a desire to visit and inspect the
temple of the Paphian Venus, a place of celebrity both among natives and foreigners. It will not be a
tedious digression to record briefly the origin of the worship, the ceremonial of the temple, and the
form under which the goddess is adored, a form found in no other place... It is forbidden to pour blood
on the altar; the place of sacrifice is served only with prayers and pure flame, and though it stands in
the open air, it is never wet with rain. The image of the goddess does not bear the human shape; it is a
rounded mass rising like a cone from a broad base to a small circumference. The meaning of this is
doubtful....Titus, after surveying the treasures, the royal presents, and the other objects which the
antiquarian tendencies of the Greek arbitrarily connect with some uncertain past, first consulted the
oracle about his voyage. Receiving an answer that the way was open and the sea propitious, he then,
after sacrificing a number of victims, asked some questions in ambiguous phrase concerning himself.
Sostratus (that was the name of the priest) seeing that the entrails presented an uniformly favourable
appearance, and that the goddess signified her favour to some great enterprise, returned at the moment
a brief and ordinary answer, but afterwards soliciting a private interview, disclosed the future. His
spirits raised, Titus rejoined his father, and was received as a mighty pledge of success by the
wavering minds of the provincials and the troops.
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Select Bibliography:
Badian, E. (1965) ‘M. Porcius Cato and the Annexation and Early Administration of Cyprus’,
The Journal of Roman Studies, 110-121
Karageorghis, J. (2005) Kypris. The Aphrodite of Cyprus. Ancient Sources and
Archaeological Evidence, A. G. Leventis Foundation, Nicosia
Lintott, A. (1993) Imperium Romanum. Politics and Administration, Routledge
Maier, F. G. and Karageorghis, V. (1984) Paphos. History and Archaeology, A. G. Leventis
Foundation, Nicosia
Mitford, T. B. (1960) ‘A Cypriot Oath of Allegiance to Tiberius’, The Journal of Roman
Studies, Vol. L: 74-79
- (1971) The Inscriptions of Kourion, American Philosophical Society
- (1980) ‘Roman Cyprus’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II. 7.2: 1285-1384
- (1990) ‘The Cults of Roman Cyprus’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II.
18.3: 2176-2211
Mitford, T. B. and Nicolaou, I. K. (1974) The Greek and Latin Inscriptions from Salamis,
Salamis Vol. 6, Nicosia, Cyprus
Parks, D. A. (2004) The Roman Coinage of Cyprus, Nicosia
Tatton-Brown, V. (1997) Ancient Cyprus, British Museum Press, second edition
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