Persian Rule Begins

When Assyrian power faded in the 7th century BCE, the Cypriot kingdoms enjoyed a period of independence. It did not last. Around 570 BCE the Egyptian pharaoh Amasis II brought the island under his control, the first time a single outside power had held all of Cyprus.

Egypt’s hold gave way to a far larger empire. The Achaemenid Persians, under Cyrus the Great and then his son Cambyses, were absorbing the whole Near East. Exactly when Cyprus changed hands is disputed. Many accounts give 545 BCE, during Cyrus’s reign, following the Greek writer Xenophon. The Encyclopaedia Iranica prefers the 520s BCE under Cambyses, drawing on Herodotus, who has the Cypriots supporting Cambyses when he conquered Egypt in 525 BCE.

Either way, Persia left the kingdoms in place. Their kings ran local affairs and paid tribute, but they also had to supply ships and crews to the Persian navy. Cypriot squadrons sailed with Xerxes in his campaigns against Greece in the 480s and 470s BCE.

Not everyone accepted this quietly. During the Ionian Revolt of the 490s BCE, Onesilus of Salamis drove out King Gorgus and won every Cypriot city except Amathus to the Greek side. A Persian army under Artybius crushed the revolt and besieged the fortified towns. Some decades later, around 451 BCE, an Athenian fleet under Cimon attacked Kition, but Cimon died during the campaign and the Athenians withdrew.

The most ambitious Cypriot ruler of the period was Evagoras I of Salamis, who held power from around 411 BCE until he was murdered in about 374 BCE. He expanded his power across the island and beyond, clashing with Phoenician Kition, until Persian campaigns forced him back into obedience and tribute. Persian overlordship lasted until the 330s BCE, when the armies of Alexander the Great swept through the region.