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DamastoB, who puts the length of the inland as from N. to S. from Hierokopia as he says, to Cleides ? Nor is Eratosthenes correct, for while blaming this writer he says Hierokopia is not on the N. but on the 8. For it is not on the S. but on the W., since it lies on the W. side, where too are Faphos and Acamas. Such then is Cyprus in point of position. But in excellence it falls behind no one of the islands: for it is rich in wine and oil, and uses home-grown wheat. There are mines of copper in plenty at Tamassos, in which are produced sulphate of copper and copper-rust useful in the healing art. Eratosthenes talks of the plains as being formerly full of wood run to riot, choked in fact with undergrowth and uncultivated. The mines were here of some little .service, the trees being cut down for the melting of copper aud silver ; and of further help was shipbuilding, when men sailed over the sea without fear and with large fleets. But when even so they were not got under leave was given to those who would and could cut them down to keep the land they had cleared in full possession and free of taxes. Now the Cypriote were first ruled in theirseveral cities by kings, but since the Ptolemaic kings became lords over Egypt, Cyprus too passed to them, the Romans also contributing often their help. But when the last Ptolemy who reigned, a brother of the father of Cleopatra, the queen of our time, seemed both unsatisfactory aud unthankful to his bene-factors, he was deposed therefor, and the Romans occupied the island, and it became a separate -imperial province. The king's ruin was chiefly due to Pnblius Claudine Pnlcher. He fell into the hands of pirates, the Ciliciaus being then very active, and requiring a ransom he applied to the king begging him to send and ransom him. He sent a very small sum, so that the very pirates were ashamed to take it. They sent it back and released Publius without a ransom. When he was safe he bore in mind against both their favours, and becoming tribune grew so powerful that Marcus Cato was sent to take Cyprus from its ruler. Ptolemy indeed succeeded in killing himself, but Cato swooped down and seized Cyprus, and disposed of the royal property and carried off the money to the common treasury of the Romans. From that date the island became an imperial province, as it is to-day. For a short interval Antony gave it to Cleopatra and her sister Arsinoe, but when he fell all his arrangements fell with him. P. MELA. Fomponius Meta, boni in Spain, wrote under Caligula, about A.D. 40, 41, his three books de Choro-yruphia, "the earliest work of this kind which ve possess, and the only special work on the subject which Roman literature has to show." Seyffert. Cyprus lies almost in the middle of the gulf which indents most widely the coast of Asia, stretching across it East and West in a straight ridge, and lying thus between Cilicia and the Syrias. It is large, in that it once included nine kingdoms, and has now a few cities, of which the most illustrious are Salamis, Paphos, and Palaepaphos, where the natives assert that Venus first rose from the sea. {Chor. il. 102. Ed. C. Frick, Leipzig, 1880.) STRABO. P. MELA. 3

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