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Those of Cyprus pleaded right of sanctuary to three of their temples: the most ancient founded by Aerias to the Paphian Venus; another by his son Amathus to the Amathusian Venus; the third to the Salaminian Jupiter by Teucer, the son of Telamon, when he fled from the fury of his father. The deputies too of other cities were heard.
The earliest of the Phoenician settlements in Cyprus seem to have lain upon its southern coast. Here were Citium, Amathus, Curium, and Paphus, the Palae-paphus of the geographers, which have all yielded abundant traces of a Phoenician occupation at a very distant period.
Below is an ornament, which is six times repeated, like the blossom of a flower; and below this is a trelliswork. The whole is cut deeply and sharply. Its Phoenician authorship is assured by its being an almost exact repetition of a group upon the silver patera found at Amathus. Of other gems equally well engraved the following are specimens.
Some critics assign them to the sixth, or even to the fifth century, B.C. West of Citium, also upon the south coast, and in a favourable situation for trade with the interior, was Amathus. The name Amathus has been connected with "Hamath;" but there is no reason to suppose that the Hamathites were Phoenicians.
Beneath an altar set with censers and basins of gold was a chest brought from Amathus, its ogive lid carved with bigæ or two-horsed chariots, and it was in this chest, Jarvo told them, that the Hereditary Treasure had been kept.
Amathus, which Stephen of Byzantium calls "a most ancient Cyprian city," was probably among the earliest of the Phoenician settlements in the island. It lay in the bay formed by the projection of Cape Gatto from the coast, and, like Citium, looked to the south-east.
Excellent representations of most of these works of art will be found in Longperier's "Musee Napoleon III.," in M. Clermont-Ganneau's "Imagerie Phenicienne," and in the "Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquite" of MM. Perrot et Chipiez. The bowls brought from Larnaca, from Curium, and from Amathus are especially interesting.
Here also was held one of the five sanhedrims authorized by the spiritual governors of Palestine; the others being established at Jerusalem, Jericho, Gadara, and Amathus. But its chief celebrity is connected with the tradition, that it was the residence of Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Virgin Mary. The house of St. Anne, observes Dr.
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