HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 299

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DRUMMOXD. 28ί> Some few miles on this siile of Amatlms, the country is open and destitute of trees; and to the northward of it, are the Montes Orini, famous for the wines they produce, which we reckoned the best that grew upon the Island. From their two high pointed tops, which are very distinct and nearly equal, 1 should rather choose to distinguish them by the name of Mamilhe Montis Olympi, than Monte Croce, were not they almost as high as Mount Olympus, and too much to the westward. I dismounted at Amathus, and revisited the ruins, together with those of what is called old Limesol by the moderns; and 1 assnre yon these ai*e the same; though some make them distinct plaças. I wish their foolish prince, Isaac Comnenus, had been wiser; or Richard the first of England more cool in his resentment; for to the one and the other, we owe the utter destruction of Amathus; though, after that period, some mean houses remained, for it was inhabited until of late. I could find nothing upon this my second examination, in which I was so eager aud diligent, that I should certainly have found the temple of Venus or Adonis, had the smallest vestiges of any such fabric.remained. All therefore, that I can say upon this subject, is, that St -John the Almoner, son of Epiphanius, Governor of Cyprus, first saw the light in tins place : in the beginning of the seventh century, he was made patriarch of jiEgypt; but he had such attachment to his native spot, that he chose to die in Amathus: and so grateful were the dead for this instance of his regard, that when he resigned his soul to heaven, and his body to the earth, two bishops, who had been, for some time, in peaceable possession of a magnificent tomb, rose up at his approach, and made way for his more sanctified carcase. Fatigued and disappointed, I proceeded to Limesol, which was given by Henry, King of Cyprus, to the Knighte Hospitallers, when they left Palestine ; and this, I humbly conceive to be the antient Curium, Carium, or Cumdium : for the geographers of former days bring the river Lycus from two different sources in the Montes Orini, unite them some leagues to the northward of this place, then separate them again into different branches, one of which empties itself into the bosom of the bay, while the other is discharged to the westward of the neck of land hard by the walls of the tomi. Whereas, I affirm it is one river, issuing from one fountain, and falling into nearly the middle of the bay on the north side ; but then Τ find another river emptying itself into the bottom of the bay, by the south-west side of the town, and coming from the nearest range of hills northwards. I know not how to reconcile these differences, yet I conclude myself right because my account proceeds from an actual survey, and, I believe, most of my predecessors depended upon hear-say; for almost every one of them is extremely erroneous in laying down the bay of this place : they represent it as a mill-pond, whereas it is a full, open bay, as yon see in the chart which I have transmitted. I took the bearings and distances of every thing there inserted, and after having chequed in different ways, I found I had not erred one league in laying down the whole of ray circuit. Upon the neck of land which joins Curium Promontorium to the main, is the village of Agrodiri, which, as well as Mount Olympus, was given to the priests of St Basil, and the reddendo of their charter was, that they should keep a sufficient number of cats to destroy the serpents, which in great numbers infasted the neighbouring grounds ; from which circumstance, t1"1 Italians bestowed upon th. Promontory, the appellation of Cape de Gato, which it retains to tins day. In all the charts have seen, this appears as a very long-necked peuinsnla ; an error, I suppose, owing to the deception occasioned by the salt-lake which you perceive to the westward ; and which one is very apt to mistake for the sea. I myself was deceived when I first saw it; but now the lake being almost crusted, I passed so near as to distinguish it perfectly. From hence the country is open and pleasant to Colos, which is a

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