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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 146

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CHAPTER XXVI. SUNDRY NOTES ON CYPRUS. (VIAGGIO, 1787. T. II. Cap. IX.) § I. The divisions of the island in old time, and under the present government. IT is well known that Cyprus once comprised nine kingdoms, or rather that its soil was divided between nine petty princes, each of whom had his own capital and court. These were [in the 4th cent. B.C. Salamis, Citium, with Idalium and Tamassus, Marium, Amathus, Curium, Paphos, Soloi, Lapethos, Ceryneia. Diodorus, xvi. 42.] The island was then divided into four Provinces, viz. Salamina, Amathusia, Paphia, and Lapethia. We should perhaps understand that the Kings of Salamis, Amathus, Paphos (old or new) and Lapethos possessed a larger territory than the other five, or enjoyed some kind of precedence among them. The fourfold division appears to have prevailed under the rule of the Egyptians and Romans. Under the Lusignan dynasty there were 12 districts : Nicosia, Famagusta, Limasol, Pafo, Cerines, Saline, Mes-sarea, Carpasso, Mazoto, Afdimu, Chrusochou, Pentaia. After the Turkish conquest these became seven Sanjaqs, whose names I do not know. But this distribution fell gradually

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