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.
Appendix G. Étienne de Lusignan and ‘the God Cinaras’
More than once I have cited the sixteenth-century Franco-Cypriot historian Étienne de Lusignan, arguing for some independent, traditional authority behind several of his unique notices. [1] These included metallurgical and ceramic inventions attributed to his ‘Cinaras’, [2] with associated topographic details; an anonymous brother, whom I connected with some form of Kothar/Khousor; Agapenor’s displacement of the Paphian dynasty to Kourion rather than the Amathous of Theopompos; and the idea that Amathous was fortified by the legendary Assyrian king Ninos. [3] We must now examine Lusignan’s credentials more closely for how ancient material may indeed have come to him—whether through oral tradition, a written source now lost, or some combination. But we cannot give all his unique notices equal weight, since some are readily explained as deductions and concoctions from extant authorities and historiographical first principles.
Étienne, born 1527/1528, was a descendant of the royal house established on Cyprus by Guy de Lusignan in 1192, following Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem in 1187. Growing up during the time of Venetian control (1489–1571), he was bilingual in Italian and Greek, perhaps ‘reacquiring’ French only later in life. A Dominican friar and, from 1564–1568, vicar of Limassol, near ancient Amathous and Kourion, Lusignan sailed for Italy just before the Ottoman invasion of June 1570—clearly with good reason. His first decade of exile was consumed in ransoming family and producing two universal histories of his homeland. [4] The Chorograffia et breve historia universale was completed 1570–1573, but Lusignan must have begun his researches some years earlier on the island itself. This treatise, with its detailed discussion of recent centuries and physical resources, was intended to rouse western interest in reclaiming the island. But it also presented the most comprehensive account of Cypriot prehistory since antiquity itself. [5] Unfortunately the work was marred by numerous typesetting errors, many of which also escaped Lusignan’s errata, where he lamented the adverse conditions in which he labored. [6] Five years of further effort led to the more lucid and expansive Description de tout l’isle de Cypre (sic, 1580). But this revision gave a much reduced account of antiquity, with, for example, details about Cinaras hacked out—as if no one would be interested!
A thorough source-analysis of both works is needed. The present discussion of Cinaras and his family may serve as a preliminary case study. This material constitutes a single module in a complex archaeology that tried to harmonize Biblical authority, [7] the chronology of Eusebios/Jerome, and a variety of discordant classical sources. The resulting confusion of periods, peoples, and events is “quaintly garbled” to say the least. [8] Other absurdities arose from textual problems and/or a poor grasp of paleography. [9]
Lusignan names Jerome, Vergil, Strabo, Pliny, Horace, Ovid, Justin, and Plutarch as sources for the Chorograffia; Aristotle, Pausanias, and Diogenes Laertios were added for the Description. Most of his statements, however, lack explicit attribution, “so as not to bore my readers.” [10] Some data lacking from his acknowledged authorities can be plausibly traced to less glamorous works. Stephanos of Byzantium and Herodian, for instance, are the only extant sources for a Koureus, son of Kinyras, who reappears in Lusignan as ‘Curio’ or ‘Curion’ (see further below). [11] Yet these same works contain relevant material not found in Lusignan, raising questions about the nature of his engagement. [12] The historian’s appetite was clearly voracious, and he seems likely to have incorporated everything he found. But one may doubt the completeness of the manuscripts or editions from which he worked, in an age with few indices.
Boccaccio’s Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, produced under the patronage of Hugo IV of Cyprus two centuries earlier—and well served in Lusignan’s time by Bandini’s comprehensive index [13] —provided Lusignan with an authoritative foundation for his historical construction. That Boccaccio’s Cypriot material enjoyed quasi-official status is indicated by Florio Bustron’s Historia de Cipro, which appeared a decade or two before Lusignan’s own work (ca. 1565). [14] In his opening essay on antiquity, Bustron took over the unique dynastic sequence of Cilix > Pygmalion (emigrating from Cilicia) > Paphos > Cinara that Boccaccio had himself adopted from the mysterious Theodontius (who expanded Ovid: see Appendix F). [15] Bustron kept the eccentric spelling ‘Cinara’ against the Cinyras/Kinyras of all classical sources, [16] and maintained the distinction between an Assyrian and Cypriot ‘Cinara’. [17] He also reproduced, verbatim, Boccaccio’s statement that “of this Cypriot Cinara we have nothing beyond one crime” (the famous incest with ‘Mirra’). [18]
When Boccaccio’s and Bustron’s confession of ignorance is set against Lusignan’s own relatively detailed treatment of Cinaras and his line, it becomes clear that the younger historian saw here an opportunity to flesh out the island’s historical record. [19] Yet he wished to supplement his predecessors, not supplant them, for he too maintained the Theodontian sequence Cilix > Pygmalion > Paphos > Cinara(s). [20] Lusignan even took pains, in discussing the lost site of Kinyreia/Cinyreia mentioned by Pliny—whom he names as his source—to change it to ‘Cinaria’. [21] He must have regarded the Theodontian spelling ‘Cinara(s)’ as an authoritative antiquarian detail.
Theodontius and Boccaccio exerted a second decisive influence on Lusignan’s elaboration of Cinaras and his line. Theodontius had promoted the Trojan War as an important historical boundary in a euhemeristic critique of pagan religion, otherwise familiar from Church Fathers and many medieval authors. So too Boccaccio, by way of apology for his fascination with ancient mythology, reminded Hugo of
this foolishness of the ancients by which they fancied themselves the offspring of divine blood … Nor was Cyprus, worthy splendor of our king, immune from this malignancy … It raged during the era of the heroes … lasting even until the ruin of proud Ilium, for we remember reading that during the Trojan War certain sons of divinities fell. [22]
This idea reappears in Lusignan’s ‘god-kings’ or ‘god-men’ (Re Dei and dei huomini), a line of preternaturally beautiful rulers whom “the people were virtually forced to revere and adore,” until their reign was interrupted by the intrusion of ‘Agapenore’ and other veterans from Troy. [23] Lusignan clung to this construction in both his works, despite problems raised by inconsistent traditions that he nevertheless wished to integrate.
A key problem was how to rationalize Adonis as successor to Cinaras’ throne—a not unreasonable idea asserted by Boccaccio and Bustron [24] —with Curio(n), another son unearthed by Lusignan himself. [25] One still senses his frustration with the dilemma. Observe first how he structures his introductory list of famous Cypriots through the use of ‘divine determinatives’:
We will talk about the gentiles first, namely: the god Pygmalion, the god Paffo, the god Cinara, the goddess Mirra, the god Adonis, the goddess Venus, the god of love , [26] Curio, Amaruco, Cinara … [27]
The startling appearance of a ‘god Cinaras’ here quickens one’s pulse with hopes of die-hard Cypriot folklore. Not impossible, perhaps. But a more prosaic explanation imposes itself: all of Lusignan’s ‘gods’ come from the sequence of tales in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (whence Theodontius, Boccaccio, and Bustron). Pygmalion was well suited to lead these self-styled ‘god-men’ because of his ivory statue-turned-queen (‘Eburne’). [28] Adonis too finds a natural place as the partner of Venus/Aphrodite—a favorite target of Christian polemicists, who treated her as a beautiful woman or even prostitute divinized by Kinyras. [29] Cupid too, of course, was well known as a god.
The pointedly non-divine status of Curio and Amaruco (both sons of Cinaras), and a second, younger Cinaras (son of Curio) definitely segregates these figures. That this relates precisely to Agapenor’s expulsion of the royal line from Paphos is shown by Lusignan’s continuous account, later in the Chorograffia, of “those who have dominated Cyprus.” Here the historian, after discussing Pygmalion and Paffo, states that “Cinara followed next in the kingdom; and other of their descendants; and they held royal power for around 300 and some years.” [30] Probably this three-century interval covers not Cinaras’ own descendants, [31] but the entire dynasty from Pygmalion down to a generation or two after the Trojan War. [32] In any case Lusignan, with no mention of Adonis, immediately goes on to Agapenore who “banished from the kingdom the kings who had descended from the gods”; they “moved to the city of Curias and reigned there and in other Cypriot cities.” [33] That these exiles are Curio and Cinaras II is clear from Lusignan’s account elsewhere of their foundations. [34] The conspicuous omission of Adonis here is of a piece with Lusignan’s statement, in the earlier entry dedicated to Curio, that this son of Cinaras “succeeded to the kingdom of his father” and founded Kourion “to make himself a name.” [35] These scattered passages, when reassembled like this, show clearly that Lusignan at one point envisioned a dynastic sequence Cinaras > Curio > Cinaras II.
Clearly Lusignan was struggling with discordant source material, with traces still visible thanks to the adverse conditions of the Chorograffia’s composition and publication. But he refused to abandon Curio and Cinaras II in the Description, and even attempted some further definition. Amaruco, Curio, and Cinaras II were now all granted divine status, as one might reasonably expect for descendants of ‘the god Cinaras’. [36] But there is a vital geopolitical qualification: Curio and Cinaras II were considered gods only in the cities that they had founded. [37] This revision does nothing to clarify the relationship between Adonis and Curio. Rather it reinforces the idea that Greek immigration after Troy was a cultural watershed, while still allowing some continuity of pre-Greek identity outside of Paphos.
There is obviously some artifice here. Curio/Koureus was probably never more than a cardboard eponym that Lusignan mined from Herodian or Stephanos. The younger Cinaras, Curio’s heir, must also be concocted. But several justifications were ready to hand. First, the distinction in Boccaccio/Bustron between an Assyrian and Cypriot Cinyras could have suggested that this was a recurring, even dynastic name. [38] Second, Ovid’s Cinyras must have seemed quite different from Pliny’s, who was a metallurgical inventor, and son not of Paphos but ‘Agrippa’ (sic). [39] Faced with this, Lusignan preserved the metallurgical Cinaras but wished to discard Pliny’s problematic paternity. [40] This was necessary if Cinaras II were to continue the royal line, an idea that I believe was motivated by a desire to accommodate insular tradition. For it is this same Cinaras II whom Lusignan credits with further crafts not found in Pliny; he associates these arts with—quite unexpectedly—Tamassos and Lapethos, where, he says, they were still practiced. [41] This appeal to present conditions strongly suggests that local craftsman maintained professional traditions about Kinyras. Of course they would have insisted that this was the Kinyras. Lusignan, I propose, harmonized his models’ Ovidian account with Cypriot tradition by creating Cinaras II, thus accommodating two seemingly different figures while side-stepping Pliny’s ‘Agrippa’. Note too how Cinaras II, as the end of the royal line, maintains Kinyras’ traditional position as a kind of cultural terminus.
If it seems incredible that Kinyras could have survived so long in Cypriot folklore, consider that fourteenth- and fifteenth-century travelers were entertained with remarkable variants on the Trojan War cycle, whereby Paphos became the site of Helen’s abduction and the gathering of the expedition against Troy. [42] Recall that Kinyras himself had featured in episodes of the Trojan cycle. [43] Such memories are consistent with the long-lasting impact of pagan cult on the island’s Christian landscape. Many basilicas and churches were built on or near ancient sanctuaries. [44] The Cypriot goddess was sometimes fused with Mary as the Panaghia Aphroditissa. [45] Lusignan himself alludes to signs that reverence for the old goddess still lingered. [46] Stones of the sanctuary at Old Paphos were still anointed in the name of the Panaghia, along with other fertility rituals, as late as the 1890s. [47] Comparable are the island’s rag-bushes, often associated with wells or pools believed to have healing properties, that are adorned by women wishing for husbands or babies, and those who are ill and have sick children or relatives. [48] The best known is at Petra tou Romiou near Old Paphos, where the ancient goddess was given by the foam. These great rocks, in one medieval tradition, were interpreted as missiles against the Saracens, thrown by the legendary Digenes defending his Queen—‘Righena’, a ubiquitous figure of Cypriot folklore who inherited many features of the island’s goddess. [49] But Aphrodite’s traditional birth endures at Chrysorogiatissa, whose monks have a legend that their sacred image of the Virgin was carried to Paphos by the waves. [50]
I have argued that Lusignan’s displacement of the Paphian line to Kourion must also have a traditional basis, being essentially compatible with Theopompos’ report that the Amathousians were the remnants of Kinyras’ men, yet expressed in different terms. [51] That Lusignan maintained the line Cinaras > Curio > Cinaras II in both his works, against the dominant paradigm Cinaras > Adonis established by his predecessors, suggests some deeper authority to which he felt beholden, notwithstanding his own active role in developing these figures. I conclude that Theopompos and Lusignan, despite their widely divergent dates, present parallel manifestations of regional Cypriot lore. This idea is strengthened by the mutual proximity of the places in question (Paphos, Amathous, Kourion). Lusignan, as vicar of Limassol, would have been ideally positioned to learn any such legends in the area. [52]
We should resist a strict distinction between ‘ancient sources’ and ‘oral tradition’. After all, the former were often originally based on the latter. And the testimony of ancient authors could itself feed back into oral tradition. An obvious locus for this is the island’s Orthodox clergy, the primary conservators of ancient literature. And where would texts touching Cyprus better survive than on the island itself? In assessing this suggestion, and its relevance to Lusignan’s early research, one must bear in mind that fourteenth-century Cyprus saw a major efflorescence of manuscript production. This movement is now difficult to appraise. Of the nine hundred or so manuscripts known to have been copied on the island, only a third still reside there. And there must have been many more. Some were donated by pilgrims to other monasteries of the Orthodox world, and so vanished. Many more were removed by humanist collectors of the fifteenth century, with further losses under the Ottomans. [53]
Under these conditions, it is quite conceivable that Lusignan was exposed to ancient learning now lost, if only through discussion with his Orthodox peers. [54] One is therefore struck by Lusignan’s terse statements about a certain Xenophon:
Liminea [i.e. Limenia] was an inland city according to Strabo; and one must give credence to Strabo because he was a student of Xenophon, the philosopher and Cypriot historian. [55]
This Cypriot Xenophon appears again, in Lusignan’s list of famous Cypriots, as “a philosopher and historian, though where he was from, and when he lived, we do not discover; however, he was from Cyprus.” [56] By the Description, Lusignan had apparently learned a bit more: he now states that Xenophon was from Salamis, taught others beside Strabo, and wrote several works (still unnamed). [57]
Given Xenophon’s description as both a philosopher and teacher of Strabo, one must suspect some confusion here, by Lusignan or an informant, with the Peripatetic Xenarkhos, whose lectures Strabo says he attended. [58] But this cannot be the whole story. Even if one supposes some textual corruption (I find no such variant in the editions), the geographer clearly states that Xenarkhos was from Seleucia in Cilicia. Any attempt to override this with a Cypriot origin would therefore have required some external motivation. [59]
As it happens, another Cypriot Xenophon was known to the Suda:
Xenophon: Cypriot, an historian (historikós); [sc. wrote] Kypriaka; and this too is a collection (historía) of erotic topics—about Kinyras and Myrrha and Adonis. [60]
“This too” refers to a further pair of Xenophons who also wrote erōtiká—one the familiar Ephesian novelist, another from Antioch. [61] Because the three entries are so similar, it is often held that a single Xenophon gave rise to spurious doubles through his stories’ geographical settings. [62] By this argument, Xenophon of Antioch would have the greatest claim to authenticity, the other two being explicable by the Cypriot context of Kinyras, Myrrha, and Adonis, and the extant Ephesian Tale (a Babylōniaká is less obviously connected with Antioch). One could then suppose that the bogus Cypriot Xenophon was adopted by Lusignan or some other patriot wishing to elaborate the island’s glorious past.
But this hypothesis, though it seems reasonable enough in isolation, creates as many problems as it solves. First, I have found no clear sign that Lusignan used the Suda otherwise. One would certainly expect him to have credited his elusive Xenophon with a work about Kinyras, had he seen notice of it. And what becomes of the claim about Strabo? Are we to believe that Lusignan (or someone else) combined a stray dictionary entry with a careless or willful distortion of the geographer’s reference to Xenarkhos, without taking over any further biographical details? Similarly, one might suggest that Lusignan’s characterization of Xenophon as a philosopher derives from combining the Suda with one of the several Xenophons listed by Diogenes Laertios. [63] But how then did Strabo enter the picture? These attempts to explain away Lusignan’s Cypriot historian and philosopher start to seem rather strained.
We should therefore entertain the possibility of a real Cypriot Xenophon who wrote about Kinyras, Myrrha, and Adonis—tales that would certainly appeal to a native islander. Just what form this would have taken is unclear, although the Suda’s terms historikós and historía would be consistent with a mythological romance. [64] Might this not be Diogenes Laertios’ fifth Xenophon, described as “having busied himself with mythological wonders”? [65] The context of Kinyras and Adonis would also give a good home to a free-floating report in Athenaios: “the Phoenicians, as Xenophon says, used to use gíngras-like double-pipes, a span in length, making a high, wailing sound.” [66] This instrument is nowhere mentioned by the Athenian Xenophon, nor the Ephesian; accordingly editors have challenged the text.
Could some of Lusignan’s unique Kinyras material derive from Xenophon, if not directly—the historian knew little about him—but via some earlier interaction of written and oral tradition? Local lore might well have preserved the name of a famous Cypriot ‘historian’, philosopher, and perhaps teacher of Strabo.
Footnotes
[ back ] 1. For convenience I use the French form that appeared with his Description. In fact he was christened Jacques, and assumed the name Étienne/Stephanos upon entering the Dominican order. He is ‘Estienne’ in the Italian Chorograffia. For this and the following details of his life, see G. Grivaud in Papadopoulos 2004 2:iii–xiv, rendering obsolete the remarks of HC 3:1147.
[ back ] 2. Lusignan normally uses ‘Cinara’ (Chorograffia) or ‘Cinare’ (Description). ‘Cinaras’, though found in but a single passage of the Description (p. 224a), can hardly be a typographical error: it reveals the historian’s mind at work, and I have adopted it to help differentiate Lusignan from his predecessors (see below).
[ back ] 3. See p325–326, 360–362, 452–453, and 547.
[ back ] 4. For both texts, Papadopoulos 2004.
[ back ] 5. For ancient analogs, see p337 and n3.
[ back ] 6. Chorograffia pp. 123a–124 (§610–611).
[ back ] 7. The first Cypriot settler is Cethin/Kittim—eponym of Kition in the Table of Nations. See Chorograffia p. 2 (§1), p. 10 (§15), cf. p. 28a (§157), p. 35 (§180), Description pp. 1–1a, p. 39a.
[ back ] 8. Quotation: HC 3:1147. As an illustration, Lusignan envisioned a 140-year period of early Argive (sic!) dominance, beginning in 1572 with the island’s capture by ‘Crassus’ (presumably the Krias(s)os of [Apollodoros] Library 2.1.2 and Eusebios’ Chronicle [1:177 Schoene]) from the Assyrians who had conquered it in the time of ‘Nino’ (Ninos). See Chorograffia p. 12a (§22), p. 27 (§47), pp. 19a–20 (§67, Pygmalion), p. 35a (§180); Description pp. 37a–38.
[ back ] 9. For instance ‘Agrippa’ for probably Argiope/Agriope (see p325 and n24)—unless this is a type-setting error.
[ back ] 10. Chorograffia p. 91 (§608), “per non generare fastidio alli animi delli Lettori.”
[ back ] 11. Herodian, Lentz Gramm. Gr. 3.1 pp. 200.2 and 358.19; Stephanos of Byzantium s.v. Κούριον; Chorograffia p. 17 (§43), p. 19a (§66), p. 20a (§71); Description p. 38a. That Lusignan knew Courio from Stephanos is likely since he also has the story of ‘Calcenore’ (Khalkanor) at Idalion (Chorograffia p. 16a [§42]), for which Stephanos is the only authority I know (for the episode, see p339).
[ back ] 12. Lusignan has no knowledge of Marieus, another son of Kinyras according to Stephanos s.v. Μάριον. While he might have taken Curio from Herodian (200.2 and 358.19), he does not cite Herodian’s testimony that Kinyras’ mother was Ἀμαθοῦς (242.34; cf. Stephanos s.v.). Similarly, Stephanos cites Hellanikos (FGH 4 F 57) for the idea that Pygmalion founded Καρπασία (s.v.), whereas Lusignan confesses that he has no knowledge about this ancient site (Chorograffia p. 12 [§20]), nor is he aware of the further material about ‘Cinaria’ (i.e. Κινύρειον) in Stephanos’ entry (for which see p547n3).
[ back ] 13. Solomon 2011:ix–x.
[ back ] 14. For Bustron’s prominent public career, and the date and character of this work, see Grivaud’s introduction, pp. vii–xii.
[ back ] 15. The name appears in Bustron p. 12 as Thedosio (A) or Theodotio (Paris). Mas Latrie saw here a corruption of Tolomeo, since Bustron had just stated that he would follow Ptolemy’s geographical sequence. But Boccaccio and ‘Theodontio’ are among the authorities listed in Bustron’s preface (p. 7).
[ back ] 16. Bustron p. 12.
[ back ] 17. Boccaccio Genealogy of the Pagan Gods 2.51; Bustron p. 14. The idea derives from ps.-Lactantius Placidus: see p281n7.
[ back ] 18. Boccaccio Genealogy of the Pagan Gods 2.269 (Ex hoc autem Cynara Cyprio preter scelus unum non habemus); Bustron p. 14 (‘Di questo Cinara ciprio non havemo altro che una sola sceleratezza’).
[ back ] 19. Lusignan’s insular focus explains why he does not mention an Assyrian Cinaras.
[ back ] 20. See Chorograffia pp. 19a–21 (§67–76) and p. 35a (§180). An erroneous translation of the latter passage in SHC 10:48 has Lampsacio take Pygmalion’s place in emigrating to Cyprus and founding the royal line: caveat lector.
[ back ] 21. Cinaria appears in his list of Cypriot cities at Chorograffia p. 6 (§4); cf. p. 17 (§43), “Cinaria era città fabricata da Cinara … non sappiamo il luogo, dove l’habbia fabricata: & se di quella sia più vestigio, & che fusse città Plinio la testificata.” At p. 20a (§72) the name is given as ‘Cinerea’; is the second e a relic of the Greek spelling Kinýreia (see p454), or just a typographical error? Étienne is otherwise consistent in rendering Greek υ as Italian i: e.g. Cipro/Κύπρος, Ciro/Κῦρος, Cirenaica/Κυρηναϊκή, etc.
[ back ] 22. Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Preface 1.4–5, 10 (trans. after Solomon).
[ back ] 23. Chorograffia p. 28a (§157): “Re Dei … li popoli erano quasi costretti di riverire & adorare essi semidei,” etc.
[ back ] 24. Boccaccio Genealogy of the Pagan Gods 2.55: “There was therefore an Adonis, King of Cyprus and husband of Venus, who I think was taken from Venus by a boar or some other death, because in imitation of her tears the ancients had a[n] annual custom of lamenting the death of Adonis.” Cf. Chorograffia p. 20a (§69–70, 73), Description p. 39. This idea was not without ancient parallels (for Servius Auctus on Vergil Eclogues 10.18, see p513–515), although Lusignan’s assertion that ‘Mirra’ was pardoned and returned to Cyprus with Adonis is unique.
[ back ] 25. See p350n74, 361, 558n11 .
[ back ] 26. The text reads “il Dio d’Amore Curio.” Cupid is obviously missing, cf. Lusignan’s discussion at pp. 20a–21 (§74–75). This makes Curio the first figure not qualified as “Dio.”
[ back ] 27. Chorograffia p. 19a (§66).
[ back ] 28. See Chorograffia p. 19a–20 (§67). According to Clement of Alexandria, Pygmalion’s statue was of Aphrodite herself (Exhortation 4.57.3, citing Philostephanos FHG 3:30 fr. 13).
[ back ] 29. Clement of Alexandria Exhortation 3.45; Arnobius Against the Pagans 6.6. Cf. Chorograffia p. 20a (§74) and above p222n15, 474.
[ back ] 30. Chorograffia p. 35a (§180): “Seguitò poi nel Regno Cinara, & altri loro descendenti, & tennero quel regno in circa 300. & tanti anni.”
[ back ] 31. So the translation of SHC 10:48.
[ back ] 32. The early chronology at Chorograffia p. 35a (§180) presents several conflicting dates, whether Lusignan’s own faulty calculations, typesetting errors, or both. The archaic conquest by ‘Crassus’ and the Argives is dated to 1572 BCE, and lasted ca. 140 years, i.e. to ca. 1432. Pygmalion’s date of 1459 must therefore be his birth, his Cypriot conquest imagined at the age of ca. 28. Since Lusignan dates the Trojan War to 1166, and at Description p. 213a makes the interval between Pygmalion and Troy 336 years, it seems clear that the 300+ years (and “they held royal power”) must refer to the entire line of Pygmalion down to a generation or two beyond Troy, enough to accommodate Curio and Cinaras II (see below). Yet at Description 224a Cinaras II is dated to 1000 BCE, well past the Trojan War. Perhaps this reflects Cinyras’ 160-year lifespan in Pliny (Natural History 7.48.154), near the passage about the Cypriot king’s discovery of copper (which Lusignan knew). In any event, the various data seem somewhat incoherent.
[ back ] 33. Chorograffia p. 35–36 (§180).
[ back ] 34. Chorograffia p. 7–8 (§9–10), p20a (§71–72).
[ back ] 35. Chorograffia p. 20a (§71): “Curio … successe nel Regno del padre, & per farsi nominare fabricò due città [i.e. ‘Curi’ and ‘Corinea’].” Compare also p. 8 (§10), where Curio’s foundation is mentioned and he is called “brother of the god Adonis,” but there is no attempt to clarify the regnal situation.
[ back ] 36. For Amaruco, see p331–332.
[ back ] 37. Description p. 38a: “Curion, fils du Roy Cinare, bastist … deux villes … Curi, & Corinee, les habitans desquelle l’ont nombré au rang des Dieux. Cinare, fils de Curion, qui estoit fils de Cinare, succeda à son pere aux villes de Curi & Corinee, & edifia d’abondant ceste autre, nomme (sic) de son nom Cinarie: des habitans desquelles il a esté aussi mis au rang des Dieux.”
[ back ] 38. See p559n17.
[ back ] 39. But note that the original was perhaps Kinyras’ mother (if Argiope/Agriope): see p325n24.
[ back ] 40. Chorograffia p. 20a (§72): “Questo Cinara … alcuni dicono, che era fligliuolo di Agrippa; ma di qual Agrippa non sappiamo.”
[ back ] 41. See p325–326.
[ back ] 42. Ludolf of Suchen (after 1350): SHC 8:169; John Adorno (1470): SHC 8:173. For these passages, see p348 and n62.
[ back ] 43. See p1, 343–345.
[ back ] 44. Kypris:228.
[ back ] 45. Frazer 1914 1:36; Kypris:228.
[ back ] 46. Description pp. 92–92a: “Mesme de nostre temps sa memoire n’est encore abolie,” etc.
[ back ] 47. Hogarth 1896:179–180; Frazer 1914 1.36.
[ back ] 48. The exact number of rag-bushes is naturally unknown. Durrell 1959:47 saw one in Keryneia that Turkish Cypriots hung with votives. Grinsell 1990 collected nine examples. Aupert 2000:37 adds the grotto of Ayia Varvara (Amathous).
[ back ] 49. Kypris:136, 10, 73, 228–229; cf. Karageorghis 1998:123.
[ back ] 50. Hogarth 1896:179–180; Frazer 1914 1.36.
[ back ] 51. Theopompos FGH 115 F 103. For this argument, see p360–362.
[ back ] 52. Note that ca. 1564 he engaged in archaeological investigation of tombs at Kouklia and Limassol: Grivaud in Papadopoulos 2004 2:v.
[ back ] 53. See the overview in Constantinides and Browning 1993:11–38.
[ back ] 54. Cf. Grivaud in Papadopoulos 2004 2:vi: “D’autres liens avec le monde orthodoxe peuvent être avancés puisque Jean, frère aîné d’Étienne, intègre le clergé régulier orthodoxe au couvent d’Antiphoniti et, au titre de hiéromoine, se présente à l’élection pour le siège épiscopal de Solia.”
[ back ] 55. Chorograffia p. 17 (§45, referring to Strabo 14.6.3): Liminea era città, secondo Strabone mediteranea (sic); & si deve dar fede à Strabone, perche fù discepolo di Xenofonte Filosofo, & Historico Cipriotto; similarly Description p. 33a.
[ back ] 56. Chorograffia p. 19a (§66), p. 22 (§87), “Xenofonte filosofo & historico: ma di che luogo, & quando fù non ritroviamo; però fù di Cipro.”
[ back ] 57. Description p. 42a: “Xenofon, Philsophe & Historiographe Salaminien, a esté precepteur de Strabon Historiographe & autres, & a escrit quelques oeuvres.”
[ back ] 58. Strabo 14.5.4.
[ back ] 59. The same reservation would apply to Xenophon of Lampsacus, on whom Strabo drew.
[ back ] 60. Suda s.v. Ξενοφῶν· Κύπριος, ἱστορικός. Κυπριακά· ἔστι δὲ καὶ αὐτὰ ἐρωτικῶν ὑποθέσεων ἱστορία περί τε Κινύραν καὶ Μύρραν καὶ Ἄδωνιν (= FGH 755).
[ back ] 61. Suda s.v. Ξενοφῶν, Ἀντιοχεύς, ἱστορικός. Βαβυλωνιακά· ἔστι δὲ ἐρωτικά. Then: Ξενοφῶν, Ἐφέσιος, ἱστορικός. Ἐφεσιακά· ἔστι δὲ ἐρωτικὰ βιβλία ιʹ περὶ Ἁβροκόμου καὶ Ἀνθίας· καὶ Περὶ τῆς πόλεως Ἐφεσίων· καὶ ἄλλα.
[ back ] 62. Rohde 1914:371–372; Lavagnini 1950:145–147; Kudlien, RE 18/2 [1967]:2058.
[ back ] 63. Diogenes Laertios 2.59.
[ back ] 64. See the overview of Cameron 2004:90–93 for ἱστορία as covering “historical, geographical, mythological, or even scientific information” (quoting D. Russel), with a mythographic sense coming to predominate in early Imperial times. Cf. Lightfoot 1999:257 and 261: “One would very much like to know how Myrrha’s sinful passion for her father was treated in the romance by Xenophon … Did it alter the relationship so that it was no longer incestuous? Did it rationalize it or mitigate it in some way? Did it domesticate Myrrha in the same way the Ninus romance domesticates Semiramis? If so, how did it deal with the metamorphosis and the birth of Adonis?”
[ back ] 65. Diogenes Laertios 2.59: πέμπτος μυθώδη τερατείαν πεπραγματευμένος. For this Xenophon see Rohde 1914:371–372n1; RE 18/2 [1967] 2089 [12]). If he was a contemporary of Demetrios of Magnesia—whom Rohde believed to be Diogenes’ source here (cf. 2.57)—he would been the right age to teach Strabo. But others see Diogenes’ fifth Xenophon as the Lampsacene: cf. NP s.v. Xenphon [8]. A further Cypriot Xenophon was high-priest (arkhiereús) and stratēgós of the island ca. 168–163 or after 124 BCE: SEG 20:200; NP s.v. Xenophon [7]. But this would be too early for Strabo.
[ back ] 66. Athenaios 174f: γιγγραίνοισι γὰρ οἱ Φοίνικες, ὥς φησιν ὁ Ξενοφῶν, ἐχρῶντο αὐλοῖς σπιθαμιαίοις τὸ μέγεθος, ὀξὺ καὶ γοερὸν φθεγγομένοις. For these pipes and their connection with Adonis, see p190n19, 202, 317. As Barker (GMW 1:262n11) notes, γιγγραίνοισι is a poetic form.