According to Josephus, Cyprus was first colonised by Cittim, a grandson of Japhet, who settled in the island, and founded Chittim, in emulation of his brother Tarshish, who had built the town of Tarsus, on the opposite coast of Cilicia. The Phœnicians, it is supposed, invaded Cyprus at a very early date, and retained possession of the whole, or a portion of the island, until the reign of Solomon. Greek colonists also settled on the coast. Herodotus states that Amasis, King of Egypt, invaded Cyprus, and took Citium (Herod., ii. 162). The island then submitted to the Persians, and afterwards surrendered to Alexander the Great, on whose death it fell, with Egypt, to the share of Ptolemy Soter, “the son of Lagus.” Having overcome Cyrene, which had revolted, Ptolemy (b.c. 313) crossed over to Cyprus to punish the kings of the various little states upon that island for having joined Antigonus, one of Alexander’s generals. Demetrius, son of Antigonus, conquered the fleet of Ptolemy near the island of Cyprus, took 1600 men prisoners and sunk 200 ships.
Now that the fate of empires was to be settled by naval battles, the friendship of Cyprus became very important to the neighbouring states. The large and safe harbours gave to this island a great value in the naval warfare between Phœnicia and Asia Minor. Alexander had given it as his opinion that the command of the Mediterranean went with the island of Cyprus, and called it the key to Egypt. Under the Ptolemies Cyprus continued sometimes united to Egypt and sometimes governed by a separate prince of that dynasty. The last of these princes, brother to Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, incurred the enmity of P. Clodius Pulcher, a Roman of illustrious family, who being taken prisoner by Cilician pirates, sent to the King of Cyprus for money to pay his ransom; the king sent an insufficient sum, and Clodius having recovered his liberty obtained a decree, as soon as he became tribune, for making Cyprus a Roman province. Marcus Cato, against whom he had a bitter enmity, was sent to take possession of the new territory, and achieved this difficult undertaking with unexpected success. The king, in despair at the attempt upon his kingdom, committed suicide. Cato at once seized upon the treasury and sent a large booty home. Cyprus thus became a Roman province, and on the division of that empire was allotted to the Byzantines, and long formed one of the brightest jewels of the imperial crown. At length, after many successive changes, it again became a separate principality, under a branch of the house of Comnena, from which it was finally wrested by the adventurous hand of Richard Cœur de Lion, who sold it to the Knights Templars. The new government proved so oppressive that the people were driven to open revolt, and Richard, having resumed the sovereignty, placed the crown, in 1192, upon the head of Guy de Lusignan, ex-king of Jerusalem.
John the Third, of Lusignan, died in 1458, leaving the kingdom to Charlotte, his only legitimate child, who married her cousin Louis, Count of Geneva, second son of the Duke of Savoy and of Anna of Cyprus. She was solemnly crowned at Likosia in 1460, but was soon afterwards expelled by her natural brother James, assisted by the Mamelukes of Egypt. James married Katharine Cornaro, the daughter of a Venetian merchant, who brought him a dowry of 100,000 golden ducats. On this occasion the Venetian Senate adopted Katharine Cornaro as daughter of St. Mark, and the marriage was celebrated in 1471. In 1473 James died, and his wife, soon after, was delivered of a son, of whom the Republic of Venice assumed the guardianship, and the Venetian troops were sent to garrison the towns of the island. The child dying whilst an infant, the Senate persuaded Katharine, in 1489, to abdicate the sovereignty in favour of the Republic, and to retire to Asolo, near Treviso, where she passed the rest of her days in a princely style on a liberal pension. Meantime, Charlotte Lusignan had retired to Rome, where she died in 1487, bequeathing her claims to Charles, Duke of Savoy, in consequence of which the sovereigns of that dynasty assume to this day the title of “Kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus.”
The Venetians kept possession of Cyprus till 1470, when Selim the Second sent a powerful force to invade the island. The Turks took Likosia by storm and massacred about 20,000 people. From that time until now the Turks have remained in possession of Cyprus.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] General Cesnola gives a most interesting description of Cyprian antiquities in a work published in 1877.
[2] The white mulberry-tree does not thrive in Cyprus.
[3] Emperor of Germany.