CHAPTER XII.

CYPRUS IN ANCIENT TIMES.

Descent of Olympus—A Retrospect—The busy Phœnicians—Shipbuilders for the Euphrates—The Goddess Astarte—The New Religion—Trojan War, the first Struggle between East and West—Grecian Warrior Colonists—Evidence of Ancient Inscriptions—The Nine Kingdoms of Cyprus—Attacks by Continental Nations—Cyprus appealed to for Assistance—The Cyprian Navy—Philip of Macedon—Alexander the Great—Cyprian Shipwrights on the Indus—Artisans of Cyprus—Ptolemies—An Egyptian Ruler—Cyprus a Roman Province—Under Roman Dominion—Aphroditissa—The Idol Stone—Little Images of the Madonna—Revolution of the Jews—Great Slaughter—A Land of Saints 97