AMATHUS
'On the south coast, at
the distance of twelve hours' ride from Larnaca, and two from Limassol,
stood the city of Amathus,
which like Paphos and Citium is known to have been originally a Phoenician
settlement, and to have retained more distinct traces of its origin
than did the other two cities, such for example as its worship of the
Tyrian Hercules, under the name of Malika or Melicertes, as the Greeks
called him.
The very great antiquity of
the city may be gathered from the fact that Tacitus calls it Vetustissima,
and that its inhabitants believed their first ancestors to have been
Autochthones. From the way in which it is associated with the priestly
family of the Cinyradae, who were credited with introducing the worship
of Aphrodite from Syria into Cyprus, it would seem as if they had first,
settled at Amathus, and afterwards transferred the centre of their power
to Paphos. Under the Ptolemies and in the later history of Cyprus, Amathus
appears to have lost the ancient importance which it enjoyed when ruled
by its own kings, and when its natural allies the Persians were all-powerful.
On the hill on which it stood, nothing is now visible but a vast
amount of stones, plaster, and broken pottery. Even the hill itself
is fast losing its form, while the rock of which it is composed is being
cut away to be shipped to Port Said, bringing the merchants of Limassol
a profitable return. From the great amount of debris which covers the
surrounding fields, Amathus, it would seem, though small in area was
a thickly populated city. Originally the upper part of the hill had
been encircled by a wall, remains of which are now scarcely perceptible;
portions, however, of another wall of a later period may be observed
on the southern side looking towards the sea.' (Di Cesnola, " Cyprus,"
p. 251. as quoted in 'Monuments of Cyprus', Jeffery, Nicosia 1918, London
1983).
Amathus is identified
by some authorities with the Phoenician 'Kartihadasti' paying tribute
to Assyria. It possessed a famous temple of Venus Amathusia which survived
into Roman times at which period the whole of the island is sometimes
spoken of as Amathusia. Very few antiquities have ever been found at
Amathus; from the exposed nature of the site and the ease with which
the secondhand building materials could be rolled down the declivity
into the sea, it has been exploited as a quarry in all ages.
The Orthodox See of Amathus (Amathonda, Amathusia, Amathussa), appears
to have originated at a remote period, but there is no legendary or
other history. Amathus continued a flourishing town until the close
of the Byzantine period and the coming of the
Franks when it appears to have been
completely destroyed by Richard
Coeur-de-Lion, in 1191. Long after
the destruction of the city the title of Bishop of Amathus seems to
have survived within the Orthodox Church, and such a prelate was amongst
the signatories of the letter to the Duke of Savoy in 1608 beseeching
him to take possession of Cyprus. Pococke (1738) found the ruins of
Amathus extensive, and amongst them a handsome ruined church. The remains
of ancient Amathus, even so late (1806) as the time of the traveller
Don Domingo Badia-y-Leyblich (Ali Bey, 'Travels of Ali Bey' (1806), would
seem to have been sufficiently imposing. He describes the remains of
a temple, of churches, and a mysterious underground labyrinth outside
the west wall of the city. This was in the days before the denudation
of the site by the builders of Alexandria and Port Said...
The early medieval or Byzantine
city of Amathus has a certain importance
in hagiology as the birthplace at the end of the Vth century of the
famous Patriarch of Alexandria, John the Almoner, the original patron
of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. His father is supposed to have
been a certain Epiphanios, Byzantine Governor of Cyprus. His remarkable
demonstrations of mercy and charity in an age when these virtues were
but little practised in the world, are clothed in the usual medieval
garb of legends and visions, the most picturesque of them being his
burial at Amathus. 'It is gravely asserted that at the funeral of
the saint in the church of St. Tychon, a former occupant of the See,
as the body was being lowered into the grave, the corpses of two holy
Bishops already interred there side by side rolled apart, and left the
space between them for the newcomer', (Hackett). St. John on several
oceasions is associated in legend with a girl, 'bright as the sun',
and wearing a crown of olive, typifying Charity.
St. John would appear to have been buried in some church within the
town of Amathus whence his entire skeleton is supposed to have been
removed to Venice and deposited in the church of San Giovanni in Bragola,
adjoining the Commandery of the Order of St. John. Here the Archimandrite
Kyprianos was in the custom of visiting the relic on his feast day the
18th November, and observed that the remains were those of a tall man
of commanding presence. The church of San Giovanni in Bragola was dedicated
to the memory of St. John the Almoner and is of very early origin, possibly
the Xth eentury; it was rebuilt in 1728. The removal of the Saint's
relics from Cyprus to Venice may have been at the time of the Crusades
when Amathus was passing away into the Nemesos or Limassol of more modern
times. Hackett ('History', p. 3) gives a lengthy version of St. John's
life, but there seems no record remaining of how the relic was carried
from Amathus to Venice.
Amathus
belongs to the
story of Richard Coeur-de-Lion's Crusade,
a page of English history which is one of the most romantic ever written.
On the death of his father Henry II, after a
lifetime spent in family strife, Richard was declared King of England,
Duke of Normandy, and Duke of Aquitaine, the last of which titles was
bestowed upon him as a child, it being his mother's patrimony. Within
a few weeks of his coronation he set out on the Crusade, joining the
French King Phillip at Vézelai, from whence the two kings journeyed
to Messina. Here they passed the winter, and amongst the political occurrences
of the moment Richard was affianced to the daughter of the King of Navarre.
Accompanied by his betrothed, Berengaria
of Navarre and his mother Eleanor
of Aquitaine, Richard continued his voyage to Palestine, and on the
way part of the fleet was shipwrecked on the coast of Cyprus and treated
with such barbarity by the islanders as to demand a punitive raid of
the country by the Crusaders. At
this period Amathus was evidently the principal port and capital of
the island, and as such was the main point of attack,
the rest of the island was quickly subdued, and within six weeks the
Anglo-Norman party of adventurers was able to put again to sea, leaving
Cyprus secured as a conquered feudal possession, according to the European
customs of the period.
The glorious exploits of
Richard I at Acre, his march down
the coast to Jaffa and Ascalon, and his conquest of the southern part
of Palestine, although he never attained his object of freeing Jerusalem
from the yoke of the Moslems, excited the wonder and enthusiasm of all
Christendom. If not the greatest general, he was the most remarkable
military engineer of his age, as the Château
Gaillard, and others of his works
in Normandy testify.
After concluding a truce with Saladin for three years Richard returned
to England in 1194 - spending a year's captivity in Austria en route
- and eventually died from a wound at the siege of Châlus on the
7th April, 1199, at the early age of 42 years.
The conquest of Cyprus by
Richard I of England in 1192 - it
was really little more than a punitive raid justified by the circumstances
- was regarded as an act of considerable prowess and renown by contemporaries.
At Fontevraud (or Font-everard), where Richard was buried in a sumptuous
tomb the following inscription was set up:
LAUS TUA
PRIMA FUIT SICULI CYPRUS ALTERA DROMO TERTIA CARVANA QUARTA SUPREMA
JOPPE SUPPRESSI SICULI CYPRUS PESSUNDATA DROMO MERSUS CARVANA CAPTA
RETENTA JOPPE. *
(William Camden's 'Remains Concerning Britain', 1870 ed., first published
in 1605 as a supplement to the Britannia).
* English translation/explanation (Anyone out there who can help the
webmaster? Please email
me.):
* Dutch translation/explanation (provisional): 'Jouw
eerste roemrijke daad (kan vertaald worden met wapenfeit) was de Siciliërs,
Cyprus jouw tweede, op het dromo (?) jouw derde, carvana (?) jouw vierde
en jouw laatste Joppe. (De Siciliers onderworpen, Cyrpus te gronde gericht,
het dromo ondergedompeld (?), carvana ingenomen en Joppe behouden).
King Richard
has also a cenotaph in Rouen Cathedral and his famous queen who was
crowned in Cyprus is commemorated by an interesting altar tomb within
a chapel of the south transept of Le Mans Cathedral, but it must be
confessed that both these latter monuments have been very much restored
since the French Revolution.
The marriage of King Richard
I with Berengaria, Princess of Navarre,
in Limassol or Amathus,
1191: 'On the 12th day of May, being Sunday, and the feast of SS. Nereus,
Achilleus and Pancratius, Richard King of England took to himself in
marriage Berengaria, daughter of the King of Navarre. Nicholas, the
King's chaplain, performed the office of this sacrament. On the same
day the King caused his wife to be crowned Queen of England in the city
of Limeszun by John, Bishop of Evreux, in the presence of the Archbishops
of Apamea and Auch, the Bishop of Bayonne, and many others.' (Benedict
of Peterborough, 'Gesta Ricardi I', Rolls series, Vol. II., p. 173).
AMATHUS,
'Monuments of Cyprus', George Jeffery (1918, re-issued London 1983)
More about the
history of Amathus
to be added later - Hans Doeleman.