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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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GIOVANNI MARITI
Travels in the Island of Cyprus
page 74

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Salamina [CH. there, great heaps of stones, and fragments of an edifice which might possibly have been a temple. The oldest existing remains are the cisterns or reservoirs which stored the water brought from Citerea, for the waters of the city were never good to drink. The city had a harbour called Port Salamino, and later Port Costanzo. Traces of it are visible, but it is ruined and choked, and only .fit for small boats. Many illustrious men are credited to this city, Ariston, a Greek historian (mentioned by the geographer Strabo, lib. XIV.) Solon, one of the wise men of Greece, who gave laws to Philocypros, King of [Soli] ; though the Athenians claim him as theirs, because he appears in the lists of their Areopagites. Cleoboulos, a philosopher, son of Evagoras II, and Neocreon, who commanded the fleet of Alexander the Great, with others whom I omit. The church too found here several illustrious champions. St Barnabas, one of the 72 disciples, was born here, and here too suffered martyrdom. Mark, also called John, the cousin of St Barnabas. St Ariston, another of the 72 disciples, was martyred here. St Epiphanios, a bishop, of whom there are fuller notices in the Illustrious men of St Jerome, in Beda, and other ecclesiastical writers. By some St Catherine, daughter of King Costa, is said to be of Salamina, though all the collections of legends make her of Alexandria. There are authorities however who call her a Cypriot, among them a Greek legend, and a writer Pietro Calo. To the north of Salamina there still stands a small chamber in which they say she was confined, until she was removed to another prison in Paphos. When the Emperor Diocletian re-subdued Egypt, which had rebelled, he summoned to him from Cyprus King Costa. It was then that St Catherine was taken to Alexandria from her prison at Paphos, and there obtained the glorious palm of martyrdom. I leave such disputes to the ecclesiastical historians : they are no business of mine. Along the shore between the ruins of Salamina and

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