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During the Hellenistic period, Cyprus formed part of the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt. After a period of unsurpassed glory, when Alexandria was effectively the capital of the Hellenistic world, the Ptolemaic kingdom began to decline. Meanwhile, the new Mediterranean power, Rome, had begun to expand in all directions. Rome was aware that in order to gain control of the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt had to be defeated. To do this, Cyprus was a necessary stepping-stone. Already in the course of the 2nd century BC, encouraged by the general decline, the Romans started interfering in the affairs of the Ptolemies, and Cyprus in particular. It was, however, the quarrels amongst the Ptolemies themselves that opened the door to the Romans, and in 58 BC Cyprus was simply annexed by Rome. In 48/47 BC, during Caesar's Alexandrine Wars, the island was restored to Egypt, effectively for the benefit of Cleopatra VII, a possession that was later confirmed by Mark Anthony. In fact, true Roman rule in Cyprus began after the battle of Actium. The well-known events that followed the victory of Octavian and Agrippa: the death of Mark Anthony, the suicide of Cleopatra in 30 BC, and the murder of Caesarion the following year, brought Egypt and with it Cyprus once and for all under Rome.
Unfortunately, the literary evidence regarding Roman Cyprus is rather limited. To a large extent, the lack of interest in Cyprus on the part of writers can be attributed to the fact that the island, enjoying considerable prosperity under Roman rule, created no problems to the central government, and there was thus no need to talk about it. Moreover, with the Eastern Mediterranean now united under the Pax Romana, Cyprus lost its strategic importance. It does, in fact, appear that, once the Roman administrative system was established, few events of international importance disturbed the tranquillity reigning over Cyprus. Even though politically and militarily demoted, inscriptions and archaeological remains testify to a prosperous and well-governed island.
At first the Cypriots were considered dediticii - that is to say, they were given no rights since they surrendered unconditionally. They were under the direct responsibility of Octavian but later, in 22 BC, after the end of the Civil Wars and the establishment of Roman rule in the East, Octavian, now the Emperor Augustus, made Cyprus a senatorial province. Thus the island entered a period of almost uninterrupted peace. Under the Pax Romana, natural disasters, earthquakes, and the occasional plague, locust attack and famine aside, few events of international importance seem to have disturbed the island for the next 300 years. With the exception of the threat of the abortive raid of the Gothic fleet in AD 269, only one event seems to have seriously threatened the peace and political stability of Cyprus. This was the Jewish Insurrection of AD 116, which, as is well known, started in Cyrenaica (in modern Libya) and spread to Cyprus, Egypt and Palestine. Cyprus and in particular the city of Salamis seem to have suffered most. Cassius Dio's (2nd/3rd century) account, according to which all the non-Jewish population of Salamis was killed, while the number of victims from the whole island reached 250.000, is certainly exaggerated but it does reflect the magnitude of the disaster. The insurrection was finally put down by forces sent to the island from Rome under the cavalry leader Lusius Quietus, who had already played an important role in Trajan's Parthian Wars.
The Jewish Insurrection showed one of the weak points of Roman rule. Namely the fact that, since the island was now of no strategic importance, it had no armed forces to protect it in case of need. On the whole, however, Roman rule, although designed to exploit fully the natural resources of the island, was wise and neither harsh nor hard to bear. The local government was headed by the proconsul, a Roman senator of praetorian status, who held office for one year only. Amongst many other things, he was responsible for the internal security of the island, which, as has already been said, did not present any great difficulty. He also had a judicial function and was the official mouthpiece of both the Senate and the Emperor. He directed all affairs aimed at expressing the province's loyalty to the Emperor, and promoted the construction of roads, aqueducts and public buildings. He was assisted by the legatus pro praetore, the deputy commander, and the quaestor provinciae, the financial officer, both of whom also served for one year only. The governing of the island was fundamentally in the hands of these three men who were all foreigners, and who were aided by a large number of lower officials. The position of proconsul was not much sought after since Cyprus, a minor senatorial province with no army apart from the governor's personal guard, offered little scope to men of political or military ambition. Moreover, and this to the Cypriots' advantage, the short tenure of all these three officials left little opportunity for corruption within the government. As a matter of fact, the three were never together on the island for more than six months: the proconsul and the legatus were appointed on 1 July, while the office of the quaestor started on 10 December. After the 1st century AD, the Emperor appointed a procurator so that he, the Emperor, could supervise finances and look after his own interests in a senatorially controlled province. Other officials were appointed in later times, including a curator civitatis, who was imposed on the cities by the Emperor as a means of keeping in check their extravagant spending, and an imperial procurator responsible for the mines.
The Romans did not make a concerted effort to Romanize the island although, as is natural, many aspects of the Roman way of life, culture and traditions gradually infiltrated into the culture of Cyprus. For governing and daily affairs the Romans relied heavily on the good will and co-operation of the old-established cities, and the assistance of a number of local officials. As before, the cities had a boule (council), but it was the archons (magistrates), presiding over the demos (popular assembly), that did most of the governing. For administrative purposes, the island was divided into four districts: Lapethia in the north, Amathousia (with the central Troodos massive) in the south, Salaminia in the east, and Paphia in the west. The territory itself was divided between the 12 (or 13) most important cities, with Nea Paphos on the west coast as the capital, as in the Hellenistic period. The fact that practically all these cities were situated along the coast reflects the peaceful conditions reigning in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. The whole island was divided in this way, and other holdings were either minimal or died after the early years of the Empire. There is, for example, information that the temple of Askelpios on the island of Kos held property in Cyprus in the early Empire. Also, considerable remnants of centuriation (land partitioning) near Salamis must be indicative of some land owned by the Roman state. However, there seem to have been no latifundia (large landed estates) nor imperial estates.
The Roman emperors made sure that the cities had a good water supply, and that they were linked with an efficient road system. Evidence for the latter is provided by a large number of milestones and the Peutinger Table (a 13th century copy of a Roman military map). The combined information shows that there was a ring road joining the coastal cities, while an inland road connected Soloi to Tamassos, then proceeded to Tremithous and possibly extended as far as Salamis. Other roads seem to have serviced the Karpas peninsula and other, smaller towns. The main part of this network can be attributed to the Emperors Augustus and Titus, but major repairs and modifications were carried out under the Severan Emperors, in the early 3rd century. At that time, it would seem, the expenses were paid for by the cities themselves, a fact that reflects the great prosperity that the island enjoyed under these emperors.
As in the rest of the Eastern Empire, Greek remained the official language, and this was also the language of decrees and edicts, while Latin was only used in the early milestones and official dedications of buildings. For their part, the Cypriots, perhaps because they entered Roman rule as dediticii, did their best to please and flatter the emperors in order, presumably, to gain favours and privileges. This is witnessed, for example, by the Oath of Allegiance to Tiberius on his accession to the throne, a copy of which was found at the village of Nikokleia near Palaepaphos. In this, the Cypriots swear, amongst other things, to obey alike by land and sea, to regard with loyalty and to worship the new emperor. This, too, is the reason why the Koinon Kyprion, the Confederacy of Cypriots, the institution that during the Hellenistic period was responsible for the worship of the deified Ptolemies, became active again. This Confederacy was also responsible for the worship of Aphrodite throughout Cyprus, which meant that it had a religious power and, by consequence, an economic and a political one too. Through this, the province could express its loyalty to the emperor, organise religious festivities and honour its benefactors with decrees. It could also strike its own bronze coins, which served as small change to the imperial coins made of more noble metals. The Cypriots, in their attempts to gain the favours of Rome, devised a unique although, admittedly, short-lived Imperial Calendar, which glorified Augustus and his house, the Julii, the legendary descendants of Aphrodite. The Roman emperors, on their part, do not seem to have responded to these flattering gestures of the Cypriots. The liberti (freedmen) are noticeably few, while Roman citizens are rarely encountered on the island during the first two centuries AD. Gradually, however, the Cypriots themselves seem to have lost interest, since their response was minimal when, in 212, Caracalla offered Roman citizenship to all free males living in the Empire. At the same time, although there were Latin trading communities in Paphos, Salamis and perhaps Kition, the island seems to have attracted very few Romans of wealth and influence. No colonies were established on the island and no city was granted full citizenship or even limited privileges, and all paid taxes.
These do not seem to have been very high because Cyprus prospered. It was self-sufficient in most things, and the exploitation of timber and minerals, mainly copper, continued as in earlier times. In 12 BC the Emperor Augustus leased half the mine revenue from Cyprus to Herod the Great of Judaea, after the latter had presented him with a gift of 300 talents, but it appears that the mines went back to the Emperor after Herod's death. One assumes that from then on most of the profit from the mines went to the emperors, and this is why, in later times at least, they were administered by an imperial procurator. With regard to timber, the 4th century AD writer Ammianus Marcellinus, claims that the island not only had a large and varied abundance of all products, but also that it could build, fully equip and send to sea a ship entirely on its own resources. The Cypriots, as always, were a predominantly agricultural people. Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79) includes the wine of Cyprus amongst the most highly prized, good quality wines, while Strabo (63 BC - 24 AD) mentions that the island had good wine and olive oil and was self-sufficient in corn. Evidence also survives regarding flax. An inscription shows that the linen-weavers of Salamis were prosperous and important enough to erect a statue of the Emperor Hadrian in the gymnasium of their city.
Archaeological evidence bears witness to a great flourishing of the arts and sciences in the peaceful and prosperous environment offered by the island. Little, however, is known of the Cypriots that made a name for themselves outside the island. Perhaps the most famous was the Paphian Platonic philosopher Bacchios, son of Tryphon, who was the first teacher of Philosophy of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and who (around the middle of the 2nd century) was honoured at Delphi in Greece. Another internationally famous Cypriot was Poplius Aelius [Ae]lianus, who lived during the Antonine period. According to a long honorary inscription, again at Delphi, he was a famous flute player, who won many contests and prizes at, amongst others, the Panhellenic competitions of the Pythia, Olympia, Nemeia and Isthmia, as well as at local ones in Rome, Naples, Nicopolis, Athens, Antioch and elsewhere. For all these, he was made honorary citizen of Athens and Antioch. Some doctors also became famous outside the island, and we will talk about them shortly.
On the island itself, by contrast, a large number of inscriptions testify that both the sciences and the arts flourished. Thus, we hear of musicians, doctors, philosophers and others. Amongst philosophers, Plous of Paphos stands out. He lived in the days of Augustus, and as well as a philosopher he was also High Priest of the cult of Aphrodite. From a 2nd century AD funerary stele, found at Atheainou, we learn of Kilikas from Kition, who kept alive the Homeric tradition by translating the Homeric poems, making known in this way the deeds of old heroes.
Several inscriptions refer to doctors, some of whom are described as archiatroi. There are also doctors of world repute, like Zenon the Cypriot, who lived around the mid-4th century. He worked in Alexandria where he founded a famous school of medicine from which three renowned doctors of Antiquity graduated: Magnus of Antioch, Oreibasios of Pergamon and Ionikos of Sardis.
Several discoveries show that Cypriot medical tradition, already well-established in Classical and Hellenistic times, continued to flourish in the Roman period. Already in the 1st century, Strabo states: Copper mines are plentiful those of Tamassos, where the chalkanthes [copper sulphate] and the salts of copper are made, useful in medicine. Galen's visit of AD 166 to the mines of Soloi was almost certainly prompted by knowledge of a local tradition that used copper salts for medical purposes. In his writings, Galen, one of the most famous doctors of all times and chief doctor to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, mentions that he came to Cyprus expressly for the island's minerals and in order to do research on their use in medicine. It should be noted that Galen's work was greatly facilitated because he had a friend who had a great deal of power on the island, who was also closely connected with the director of the mines and was the representative of Caesar. Tangible evidence of this medical tradition has come to light in Paphos, where there is a partially excavated Asklepieion, forming part of a large complex of buildings in the monumental centre of the city. An inscription mentioning Asklepiodoros, founder and High Priest of the sanctuary of Asklepios and Hygeia, testifies the existence of another such sanctuary at Kition. Like elsewhere in the Greek world, in these sanctuaries, which were dedicated to the god of medicine Asklepios (often together with his daughter Hygeia), the sick came to stay and be healed by the god through his priest.
Even more important are the many clay vessels from Paphos, shaped like different parts of the human body. The underside of each is moulded so as to fit on top of the part of the body imitated, and it is clear that these vessels were used like hot-water bottles. Although such objects are not mentioned in the ancient sources, they must have been similar to today's hot-water bottles, and were used like the emplastra and the thermasmata of the ancients, that were warm preparations wrapped in cloth, the purpose of which was to cause hyperaemia in rheumatic conditions and relieve pain. They could, of course, also be used for the relief of aches due to other causes. Despite the fact that such pottery was widely used in Paphos, it appears to have been practically unknown in the rest of the ancient world.
Another equally important medical discovery also comes from Paphos. This is the tomb of a surgeon who died during the Severan period, and who was buried with a large number of offerings, including one of the most complete medical instrumentaria surviving from the Roman world. This comprises, amongst other things, a bleeding cup, a blind hook, levers, scalpels and tubular containers - all made of bronze, except for the scissors, the pincers and the sharp blades of the scalpels which were made of iron. A set of small, delicate instruments was kept in a protective tubular container, while other, similar containers were full of different powders and pills which upon analysis proved to be metallic salts, mostly of copper. This is particularly interesting as there can be little doubt that these are the kind of substances that only a few years earlier, in 166, the great Galen himself came to collect from the mines of Soloi for their medicinal properties.
The works of art, artifacts and architectural remains of Roman Cyprus exhibit a wide variety of types, styles and influences. Here we will only discuss some of those that link the island in some way with Rome. Cyprus is not as rich as other regions of the Mediterranean in sculpture because it has no native marble. All the important statues, made of marble, were imported mainly from the Greek islands and Asia Minor, and belong to the wider Graeco-Roman artistic koine. By contrast, most local creations are made of limestone and are often rather crude and provincial, although, as in a head in the Pierides collection in Larnaca and the so-called Caligula in the Cyprus Museum, a conscious effort is made to follow Roman prototypes. There are also imported statues which form part of the official, imperial art and propaganda. Such statues, which can be either of marble or bronze, were made on imperial specifications, in large workshops and were then sent to decorate the public buildings in the big centres of the Empire. An example in marble, probably made in the vicinity of Athens, is a cuirassed torso of Vespasian or Titus found in the Theatre of Salamis. A 1st century AD bronze portrait of either Claudius or Germanicus (or their father, the general Nero Drusus) comes from the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Salamis. Bronze statues of this group are generally rare, so Cyprus is fortunate in having a really exceptional piece. This is the larger-than-life Septimius Severus from Chytroi, now in the Cyprus Museum. This, in the words of Cornelius Vermeule, is the grandest work of art that has survived from a period when Cyprus was a prosperous part of a vast imperial as well as local metropolitan creative organisation.
A mixture of local traditions and artistic influences from overseas also characterises the architecture of Roman Cyprus. In religious architecture, centuries-old forms, like that of the sacred precinct, persist even for the most prestigious of the island's sanctuaries, that of Aphrodite at Palaipaphos. New imported architectural types are also introduced but mostly from the East, like the Nabatean style that was used in many of the important 2nd century temples of the island, such as that of Aphrodite at Amathous and that of Apollo Hylates at Kourion.
It is in some of the public buildings that the influence of Rome and the Roman way of life are most evident. Gymnasia/agorai - one of the main elements of a Greek city - continued to play a leading role, and such buildings are known from most of the major cities of the island. So far, two stadia are known, at Salamis and at Kourion, and the Acts of Saint Barnabas refer to a circus, the Roman version of one such building, at Kition. An inscription mentions a theatre at Kition, while the buildings themselves survive at Soloi, Kourion, Salamis and Paphos. Those of Soloi, Kourion and Paphos were first built during the Hellenistic period and, typically, they are constructed against the hillside. As we will see, they were all modified later, so as to conform to the new Roman fashions, not only in architecture but also in the spectacles performed there. The theatre of Salamis, on the other hand, although it too underwent several alterations, was built in Roman times and had no need of the natural support of a hillside since it exploited the properties of Roman concrete.
Despite such later conversions, a theatre remained a characteristically Greek type of building. It is natural, however, that other new types of buildings of a distinctively Roman character, such as public baths, nymphaea (fountains with architectural background), odeia (music halls) and amphitheatres, were also constructed in the large towns.
Amongst public baths those of Salamis are the most famous. Situated next to the gymnasium, they have given one of the richest collections of marble sculpture on the island. The baths are also known for their fragmentary but extremely rare 3rd century wall decoration of mosaic and fresco. Very few such mosaics survive from the ancient world because the ceilings and walls they decorate are the first to collapse during an earthquake or when a building is abandoned. When the Christians took over the Baths of Salamis they blocked with masonry the mosaic-decorated apses in order, it would seem, to hide their pagan decoration. In this way, however, with the extra support they gave to the apses, they prevented them from collapsing and thus, unwittingly, saved the offending pagan mosaics.
An equally important Roman bath building has recently been excavated at Kourion. This complex was even larger than that of Salamis, and appears to have had at least 14 large rooms, which were equipped with a hypocaust and thus had heated floors and walls. Many of the rooms were decorated with rich marble veneer and sculpture, some of it of extremely high quality. In the middle of the heated rooms, there is a large, richly decorated hall with fountains, which has been identified as a nymphaeum. At Soloi, another nymphaeum seems to be independent of other structures and to form the focal point of a wide, paved avenue. Although, as the name denotes, odeia were originally Greek structures, they became a characteristic feature of Roman cities. Surprisingly, only one odeion is so far known on the island. It is found, as one would expect, in Paphos and forms part of a large 2nd century complex including the already mentioned Asklepieion and gymnasium/agora. Lastly, amphitheatres, the most characteristic of Roman buildings, where gladiatorial games and venationes (staged animal hunts) took place, have been located but only partly excavated in Paphos and Salamis. In other cities, the theatres were modified so as to accommodate these and other typically Roman spectacles. For instance, under the emperor Caracalla (AD 211-217), the first seats of the Theatre of Kourion were removed so as to convert the orchestra into an arena suitable for gladiatorial games and venationes. In the same way, and again in the 3rd century, the orchestra of the Theatres of Salamis and Paphos were equipped with a parapet and converted into a naumachia, a structure that could be flooded so that water sports and staged sea-battles could be performed. It is often said that the Greek East, because of its different cultural background, did not show the same passion for gladiatorial games and venationes, as the Latin West did. These amphitheatres and converted theatres, however, as well as an inscription from Ankara mentioning a procurator familiae gladiatoriae for Cyprus, show how, in this respect at least, the island was Romanised and how these blood-thirsty spectacles were popular there too. Also testifying to this are the mosaics from the House of the Gladiators at Kourion. The two panels that survive more or less complete and depict gladiators and a lanista (trainer), typically Western in character, are extremely important, not only because of their high quality but, precisely, because they depict a theme of great rarity in the Greek East.
The Gladiatorial mosaics were made in the 3rd century AD, a period during which, in typically Roman fashion, all wealthy houses were decorated with mosaic floors. It should be stressed that these Cypriot mosaics are the island's real contribution to Roman art. Whereas in many other respects the island was primarily a recipient of ideas, in the realm of mosaics it seems to have held one of the leading places. In Roman times the relatively limited iconographic repertory of Hellenistic floor mosaics was vastly enriched with themes from Greek and Roman mythology, scenes from daily life and a variety of other subjects. As one would expect, the best specimens on the island come from the capital, Paphos. The most famous mosaic-decorated building on the island is the House of Dionysos. It takes its name from the god of wine who features prominently in its decoration. The house occupied about 2.000m2 and more than a quarter of its floor surface was covered with mosaics. The tablinum (the main reception and dining room) has at its entrance a long panel with the Triumph of Dionysos. In the centre of the room there is a half-imaginary half-realistic representation of combined vintage and hunting scenes, executed with a multiple viewpoint so that it could be enjoyed by all the diners reclining on the klinai (couches) around it. Of the many other representations in this house, mention can be made of the beautiful Rape of Ganymede, and the panel illustrating Phaedra's incestuous love for her stepson Hippolytos. The latter is of special interest, since it illustrates a story known more from literature rather than mythology. The mosaics of this house are many and varied and show how Cypriot mosaic art absorbed elements stemming from different parts of the Roman world. An interesting case is that of the hunting scenes decorating three porticoes in the atrium. This was a theme popular in North Africa and the Latin West but rarely used in the East before the later Roman period. For reasons that are not yet completely clear, but that must be related to the contacts the island maintained with the Western Roman world, hunting scenes decorate not only The House of Dionysos but also other buildings datable to the early 3rd century AD, like The House of The Four Seasons in Paphos.
Dating to the same period is another house known as the House of Orpheus because of a splendid floor depicting Orpheus enchanting the beasts with his music. Above the figure of Orpheus, there is an inscription, unique in Cyprus, which reads: [ΓΙΑ]ΟΣ oder [ΤΙ]ΤΟΣ ΠΙΝΝΙΟΣ ΡΕΣΤΙΤΟΥΤΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ, that is, “[GAI]US” or “[TI]TUS PINNIUS RESTITUTUS made it. At first sight this may be interpreted as the signature of the mosaicist, but for a number of reasons, not least the tria nomina (the three names indicating a Roman citizen) of the man mentioned here, leads one to see in Restitutos the owner of the house that paid for the decoration rather than the actual creator of the mosaic.
Mosaics of the 4th and even the 5th century AD, preserving the classical iconographic tradition, decorate the Villa of Theseus at Paphos, believed to be the residence of the Roman Proconsul.
That all the above floors are found in Paphos should not surprise us, since Nea Paphos had been the capital of the island since the first half of the 2nd century BC, and preserved this privilege under the Romans, right up to the mid-4th century AD. In early Roman times, inscriptions refer to the polis (city) or the demos (land) of the Paphians. As the city grew, however, it was given more and more honorary titles, which reflect her increasing importance. In early Imperial times Paphos was named Augusta when the Emperor Augustus came to its aid after the city was damaged by earthquakes. It has been argued that the name Claudia was conferred by the Emperor Nero in AD 66, on the occasion of his artistic tour of Greece, while it has been put forward that the name Flavia was conferred by Titus or Vespasian when in AD 77/78 the city was devastated by yet another earthquake. Paphos had the last and most glorious of her names during the Severan period when the city was called Augusta Claudia Flavia Paphos, the sacred metropolis of the cities of Cyprus. And, indeed, the Severan period appears to have been a real Golden Age for Paphos and for the island as a whole.
The prosperity of the Severan period continued through the rest of the 3rd and part of the 4th century but by then, the first signs of decline were already beginning to appear. This decline was brought about by a series of events that led to the loss of the relative autonomy that Cyprus had been enjoying within the Roman world. Under Diocletian, in AD 293, the Roman Empire was divided into the Eastern and the Western part, and Cyprus, as was natural, went to the East, together with South East Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine. In this way the island lost its independence since it was no more governed by her own proconsul, but by a consularis, who acted under the Praetorian Prefect of the Orient based in Antioch. This marked the beginning of the island's loss of a direct administrative link with Rome, since the subordination of Cyprus to Antioch was to continue for another two centuries, first under the vicarius, and later under the comes orientis, officials who were both based in Antioch. The decline was accelerated by a series of natural disasters that culminated in the earthquakes of the early 4th century, which ruined all the large cities of the island. Up until then, Paphos had remained the capital and the political, administrative and cultural centre of the island. After the reorganisation of the 4th century, however, and the subordination of Cyprus to Antioch, as well as a more general reorientation towards the East and the new capital Constantinople, Paphos lost her importance. To such a degree that, in the rebuilding that followed the disastrous earthquakes of AD 332 and 342, the Emperor Constantios II (337-361) gave priority to Salamis, which was rebuilt as the new capital of Cyprus, with the name Constantia.
* Parts of the present text largely reproduce the article by Michaelides, D., Roman Cyprus, in L. Linge (ed.), Cypern I historiens spegel (Föredrag fran en studieresa arrangerad, av historielörarnas förening Göteborgskretens - Swedish History Teachers' Association, Göteborg) (Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature, Pocket-Book 146). Göteborg 1997, 12-23.