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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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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 50

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FELIX FA HER. 4 Γ» unwonted obstacle occurs. But when they round the morsel wrapped in a little cloth, and heard the truth as confessed by the lady, they returned to the port which they had left, and when they had replaced the morsel sailed away with a favouring wind. In this city the Queen has her palace, and all things are cheap. The second bishopric is that of Fainagusta, which was once famous, nnd the capital of the whole kingdom, and the residence uf its kings. This city is set on the seashore, and has a port most convenient fur fleets. Our brethren have a convent there, but it is almost a wreck, for min threatens the city and all that is in it. It is said that no one can stay there on account of the corruption of the air. In these twu cities were centred all the glory and the imported riches of Cyprus: here too was a crowd of all nations and tongues. But day by day all these things are vanishing. Near Fainagusta are the ruins of a very ancient city which was called Salamina, said to have been built by one Teucer. When this Teucer went with his brother to the Trojan war, and after t&e war was ended returned to their country without hiin, he was repulsed, and sailing for Cyprus built Saturnina and there ended his days. His father Telamon had been the first to scale the walls of Troy: he married the daughter of a noble Trojan who bore him Ajax and Teucer. From that Teucer there are persons who think the people of the Teneri, or Turks, take their origin. Hence tbey now call themselves Turks, as sprung from Teucer (vol. III. 230—230). This Salamina then in Cyprus, the ancient city of Teucer, beeidet« foisting on us the hateful and abominable Turks, gave us S. Barnabas the Apostle, who there suffered martyrdom, and the holy and lovable Catharine, who is said to have been boni there, and α chapel erected on the place of her birth is still shown to travellers. For Salamina was the capital of Costa's kingdom. Some of the histories call this city Constantia of Cyprus, which is its newer name, as saith Jerome in his Life and .Death of S. Paula. But some who read the history of 8. Cathariiui, when they see she was born in Cuitstantia, think that Constantia to be the German city situated on the lake, whether natural or fed by a river, so called. There too is shown the place of her birth, but not the true one. Mureover in Salamina was a holy man, that Bishop Epiphanius of whom S. Jerome makes frequent and flattering mention, because they were comrades in the defeat of the heresy of Ori gen, as we learn from the Epistle of Jerome to Pa mm acinus against John, Bishop of Jerusalem. Hence also we team that the see of FainaguRta was anciently at Salamina, and later translated to Fainagusta. The third see is Paphus, the oldest of all the cities of Cypiiis, and made illustrious not only by the songs of poets, but by the deeds of apostles. For SS. Paul and Barnabas preached there. There too Hilarius the abbot lived, and S. Manna, whom the Greeks invoke against the pestilence, and find him a trne intercessor. How vast this city was, and how stately the churches which stood there, the- extent of the ruins and the noble columns of marble which lie prostrate prove. It is now desolate, no longer a oily, but a miserable village built over the ruins ; on this account the harbour too is abandoned, and ships only enter it when forced to do so, as was our fate. As the city was laid low by an earthquake so it lies still, and no king noi* bishop gives a hand to raise it up again. The fourth see is in Nimona, on the seashore, where I stayed some days waiting for the vessels. Nimona is a ruined city, with α good harbour, facing Tyre and Sidon, and whence with a favourable wind one can sail in a day and a night to ports which are the best in the world for business, to Armenia, Cilicia, Laodicaea, Selcucia, Antioch, Syria, Palaestina, Alexandria of Egypt, Beirut, Tripoli, Ptolemais, Caesarea, Tyre, Sidon, Joppa, Ascalon and others. Nimona, as its ruins show, was a great city, to which when Saladin took Jerusalem

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