XXXI. Adonis in Cyprus
THE ISLAND of Cyprus lies but one day's sail from the coast of
Syria. Indeed, on fine summer evenings its mountains may be descried
looming low and dark against the red fires of sunset. With its rich
mines of copper and its forests of firs and stately cedars, the
island naturally attracted a commercial and maritime people like the
Phoenicians; while the abundance of its corn, its wine, and its oil
must have rendered it in their eyes a Land of Promise by comparison
with the niggardly nature of their own rugged coast, hemmed in
between the mountains and the sea. Accordingly they settled in
Cyprus at a very early date and remained there long after the Greeks
had also established themselves on its shores; for we know from
inscriptions and coins that Phoenician kings reigned at Citium, the
Chittim of the Hebrews, down to the time of Alexander the Great.
Naturally the Semitic colonists brought their gods with them from
the mother-land. They worshipped Baal of the Lebanon, who may well
have been Adonis, and at Amathus on the south coast they instituted
the rites of Adonis and Aphrodite, or rather Astarte.
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