HELLENISTIC PERIOD

HELLENISTIC PERIOD (322-58 B.C.) History of Cyprus

It was Alexander the Great who was responsible for the spread of Hellenism. His ambition was to follow military conquests with the culture expounded to him by Aristotle. He was so successful in his campaigns that when he died no oriental opponent remained. But although there was no enemy, and although Alexander's successors were inspired by their dead leader's ideals and imperial policy, he left no competent heir, and fighting broke out between the Macedonian generals who sought to succeed him. Of these, Ptolemy, Satrap of Egypt and founder of a dynasty, set himself the task during the forty years of war which followed of holding Egypt and gaining control of Cyrenaica, Palestine and Cyprus. In 318 B.C. he established a protectorate over Cyprus, which covered all but the kingdoms of Amathus, Kitium, Lapithos and Kyrenia, which had opted for rule by Antigonus, another Macedonian general, who had claims on Asia Minor and Syria as well as Cyprus. Ptolemy's forces under his brother Menelaus, with a navy commanded by Seleucus, another of Alexander's Macedonians, joined Nicocreon, king of Salamis, in operations against the strongholds of the supporters of Antigonus. These were vanquished with the exception of Kitium, under its king, Pygmalion. A year later Ptolemy came to Cyprus in person, took Kitium and executed its king, destroyed Marion and transferred its population to Paphos, and dispatched all the other recalcitrant kings as prisoners to Egypt. Nicocreon, king of Salamis, was appointed ruler of the conquered cities, while Menelaus was made strategies or military governor of the island. The position remained thus until 306 B.C., when Antigonus dispatched his son Demetrius with 15,000 men and 100 ships to Cyprus. They landed on the Karpas Peninsula, where there were good harbour facilities. Menelaus met him in battle, but lost half of a large army, and had to retreat in disorder to Salamis. Here he was besieged by Demetrius, who brought up great engines of war against the defences of the city. Though Ptolemy came to the assistance of his brother, his fleet was decisively beaten off Cape Greco, and Menelaus surrendered. Demetrius ruled for ten years as king of Salamis, until in 295 B.C. Ptolemy recaptured the island. Though Salamis was the one city to resist him, it was easily subjugated. Almost without interruption for the next three hundred years Cyprus now remained under the Ptolemies, who divided the island into four administrative parts: Paphos, Amathus, Salamis and Lapithos all of which were ruled over by a strategies chosen from the aristocracy of the royal court at Alexandria. Paphos became the capital of the island. During this period Alexandria was at its height as a great centre of learning and of luxury, and Cyprus was a valued possession of the Egyptian crown. Ptolemy Philadelphus, who succeeded Ptolemy I, built the city of Arsinoe to replace Marion and named it after his sister. When he deified her, her cult came to be identified with that of Aphrodite. But the dynasty grew degenerate, lacking legitimate heirs, and there was a suggestion that the last true Ptolemy had bequeathed Cyprus to Rome. Consequently, when a Roman patrician was insulted by the nominal king of Cyprus, the bastard known as Ptolemy the Cyprian, the affair was used as an excuse for the annexation of the island. Cyprus became a province of the Roman Empire in 58 B.C.

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