Franklin, John Curtis. 2016. Kinyras: The Divine Lyre. Hellenic Studies Series 70. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_FranklinJ.Kinyras.2016.
13. The Talents of Kinyras
Great Kingship
Metallurge and Potter
For once a prôtos heuretḗs sounds a realistic note, since in a monarchic society ultimate control of mines and production processes will have rested in a single pair of royal hands.
Kinyras the Mariner
Eratosthenes seems to allude to a Cypriot popular memory of a time when the island’s ships ‘commanded’ the seas. Similarly, Cyprus appears in the ancient thalassocracy-lists, immediately before Phoenicia and Egypt. [36] There have been various attempts to match this list’s sea-powers with historical epochs; that of Cyprus is often placed in the ninth or eighth centuries. [37] Such analyses are inevitably undermined by the list’s obvious artificiality, especially for the alleged sea-powers of earlier times. For the LBA, in particular, the thalassocratic model has been well challenged; still, it is certain that Cyprus played a key role in LBA trade between the Aegean, the Levant, and Egypt. [38] If the Cypriot ‘thalassocracy’ rests on any genuine tradition, the ‘historical precedence’ of Cyprus over Phoenicia makes it quite possible that this reflects some popular memory of Alashiyan maritime activity. Eratosthenes certainly envisioned a very early horizon for “the sea being sailed in force.”
Oilman and Parfumeur
The verse of the Aeneid to which this notice was attached relates to Venus’ abduction of Ascanius, whom she hides “in the high groves / of Idalion, where soft amaracus exhaling / with flowers and sweet shade embraces him.” [72] Servius and other commentators often attached gratuitous aetiologies where not really justified by the original text. Here, however, Vergil’s intentionally ambiguous syntax and diction, which permit both concrete and personified readings (note especially adspirans complectitur), strongly suggest that he is indeed alluding to the Amaracus tale. If so, it would readily imply, given the setting of Idalion, that Amaracus himself was a Cypriot prince. It then becomes quite possible that he was the son of Kinyras himself.
The Virtuous Monarch
Conclusion
Footnotes