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CHAPTER I. A GENERAL VIEW OF THE ISLAND AND KINGDOM OF CYPRUS. CYPRUS, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, and dependency of Turkey in Asia, lies in long. 52е 45' and lat. 350 30', between the coast of Syria and that of Cilicia now called Caramania. It has had various names. Pliny, v. 31, calls it Acamantis, Cerastis, Aspelia, Amathusia, Macaria, Cryptos and Colinia. In other historians it bears the names of Chetinia, Aerosa, Paphos, Salamina; and in the poets Cythera, from the goddess Venus who, they say playfully, was there nursed and brought up, and to whom were erected there several temples, of which the most conspicuous were in the cities of Paphos, Cythera and Amathus. Cyprus once comprised nine kingdoms—"quondam novem regnorum sedem" says Pliny, afterwards the Kings of Egypt reigned there, and then the Romans. From the Empire of the West it passed to .that of the Greek Emperors of Constantinople, from whom it was wrested by the Arabs in the days of Heraclius. The Emperors soon recovered their sovereignty, but Isaac, a prince of the family of the Comneni, who ruled the island with the title of Duke, usurped the supreme power, and through the weakness of the Empire remained in absolute and peaceful possession, until in 1191 Richard I, King of England, took his throne and his life, and sold the kingdom to the Knights Templars. These, owing to their harsh behaviour towards the natives who followed the Greek rite, saw that they could not c. Μ. τ. ι

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