Map of the Roman Empire - Salamis

Salamis
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Ancient Salamis An island north of Famagusta off the coast of Attica and part of the Roman province of Cilicia. The island of Salamis is famous for the Battle of Salamis. Paul the Apostle landed on this island and preached in their synagogues.

Acts 13:5 - And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to [their] minister.

Salamis (Σαλαμίς). Now Koluri; an island off the west coast of Attica, and forming the southern boundary of the Bay of Eleusis. It is best known from the great naval victory of the Greeks over the Persian fleet of Xerxes in B.C. 480. See Xerxes. - Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

Salamis (Ancient Greek: Σαλαμίς) was an ancient Greek city-state on the east coast of Cyprus, at the mouth of the river Pedieos, 6 km north of modern Famagusta. According to tradition the founder of Salamis was Teucer, son of Telamon, who could not return home after the Trojan war because he had failed to avenge his brother Ajax. In Roman times, Salamis was part of the Roman province of Cilicia. The seat of the governor was relocated to Paphos. The town suffered heavily during the Jewish rising of AD 116/117. Although Salamis ceased to be the capital of Cyprus from the Hellenistic period onwards when it was replaced by Paphos, its wealth and importance did not diminish. The city was particularly favoured by the Roman emperors Trajan and Hadrian who restored and established its public buildings. On his first journey, Paul, the Apostle, landed here and preached in the synagogues (Acts 13:5), before proceeding further in the island. The Cypriot-born Saint Barnabas, who figures prominently in the Acts of the Apostles brought Christianity to Cyprus in the first century CE. Tradition says that Barnabas preached in Alexandria and Rome, and was stoned to death at Salamis about 61 CE. He is considered the founder of the Church of Cyprus. His bones are believed to be located in the Monastery named after him. - Wikipedia

Salamis (Sciras, Cychrea), I. an isl. of Attica, in Saronicus sinus, between Megaris and Athens. Named from Salamis, mother of Asopns. Settled prior to the siege of Troy by the Maddm; in length 9 m. Celebrated for the defeat, in its bay, of the fleet of Xerxes by Themistocles, 480 B.C. Colouri. - Classical Gazetteer

Ancient History of Salamis. The earliest archaeological finds go back to the eleventh century BCE (Late Bronze Age III). The copper ores of Cyprus made the island an essential node in the earliest trade networks, and Cyprus was a source of the orientalizing cultural traits of mainland Greece at the end of the Greek Dark Ages, hypothesized by Walter Burkert in 1992. Children's burials in Canaanite jars indicate a Phoenician presence. A harbour and a cemetery from this period have been excavated. The town is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions as one of the kingdoms of Iadnana (Cyprus)[1]. In 877 an Assyrian army reached the Mediterranean shores for the first time. In 708 the city-kings of Cyprus paid homage to Sargon II of Assyria (Burkert). The first coins were minted in the 6th century BCE, following Persian prototypes. Cyprus was under the control of the Assyrians at this time but the city-states of the island enjoyed a relative independence as long as they paid their tribute to the Assyrian king. This allowed the kings of the various cities to accumulate wealth and power. Certain burial customs observed in the "royal tombs" of Salamis relate directly to Homeric rites, such as the sacrifice of horses in honour of the dead and the offering of jars of olive oil. Some scholars have interpreted this phenomenon as the result of influence of the Homeric Epics in Cyprus. Most of the grave goods come from the Levant or Egypt. The founder of Salamis is Teucer, son of Telamon, who could not return home after the Trojan war because he had failed to avenge his brother Ajax.

In 450 BCE Salamis was the site of a simultaneous land and sea battle between Athens and the Persians. (This is not to be confused with the earlier Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE between the Greeks and the Persians at Salamis in Attica.) The history of Salamis during the early Archaic and Classical periods is reflected in the narrations of the Greek historian Herodotus and the much later speeches of the Greek orator Isocrates. The city was then the capital of the island and led the other Cypriot cities in their efforts to liberate themselves from Persian rule. The most important ruler of the kingdom of Salamis was Evagoras (410�374 BCE), who became ruler of the whole island, and won its independence from the Persian Empire. Salamis was afterwards besieged and conquered by Artaxerxes III. Under King Evagoras (411-374 BCE) Greek culture and art flourished in the city and it would be interesting one day when the spade of the archaeologist uncovers public buildings of this period. A monument, which illustrates the end of the Classical period in Salamis, is the tumulus, which covered the cenotaph of Nicocreon, one of the last kings of Salamis, who perished in 311 BCE. On its monumental platform were found several clay heads, some of which are portraits, perhaps of members of the royal family who were honoured after their death on the pyre. After Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian Empire, Ptolemy I of Egypt ruled the island of Cyprus. He forced Nicocreon, who had been the Ptolemaic governor of the island, to commit suicide in 311 BCE, because he did not trust him any more. In his place came king Menelaus, who was the brother of the first Ptolemy. Nicocreon is supposed to be buried in one of the big tumuli near Enkomi. Salamis remained seat of the governor. In 306 BCE Salamis was the site of a naval battle between the fleets of Demetrius I of Macedon and Ptolemy I of Egypt. Demetrius won the battle and captured the island. - Wikipedia

Salamis
SA�LAMIS (Σαλαμίς, Aesch. Pers. 880; Scyl. p. 41; Ptol. 5.14.3, 8.20.5; Stadiasm. � � 288, 289; Pomp. Mela, 2.7.5; Plin. Nat. 5.35; Horat. Carm. 1.729; Sa?a�??, Eustath ad Il. 2.558; Sa?a�?a?, Malala, Chron. xii. p. 313, ed. Bonn: Eth. Sa?a�?????, B�ckh, Inscr. nos. 2625, 2638, 2639), a city on the E. coast of Cyprus, 18 M. P. from Tremithus, and 24 M. P. from Chytri. (Peut. Tab.) Legend assigned its foundation to the Aeacid Teucer, whose fortunes formed the subject of a tragedy by Sophocles, called ?e?????, and of one with a similar title by Pacuvius. (Cic. de Orat. 1.58, 2.46.) The people of Salamis showed the tomb of the archer Teucer (Aristot. Anthologia, 1.8, 112), and the reigning princes at the time of the Ionic revolt were Greeks of the Teucrid �Gens,� although one of them bore the Phoenician name of Siromus (Hiram). (Hdt. 5.104.) In the 6th century B.C. Salamis was already an important town, and in alliance with the Battiad princes of Cyrene, though the king Evelthon refused to assist in reinstating Arcesilaus III. upon the throne. (Hdt. 4.162.) The descendant of this Evelthon--the despot Gorgus--was unwilling to join in the Ionic revolt, but his brother Onesilus shut him out of the gates, and taking the command of the united forces of Salamis and the other cities, flew to arms. The battle which crushed the independence of Cyprus was fought under the walls of Salamis, which was compelled to submit to its former lord, Gorgus. (Hdt. 5.103, 104, 108, 110.) Afterwards it was besieged by Anaxicrates, the successor of Cimon, but when the convention was made with the Persians the Athenians did not press the siege. (Diod. 12.13.) After the peace of Antalcidas the Persians had to struggle for ten years with all their forces against the indefatigable and gentle Evagoras. Isocrates composed a panegyric of this prince addressed to his son Nicocles, which, with every allowance for its partiality, gives an interesting picture of the struggle which the Hellenic Evagoras waged against the Phoenician and Oriental influence under which Salamis and Cyprus had languished. (Comp. Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. x. c. lxxvi.) [2.877] Evagoras with his son Pnytagoras was assassinated by a eunuch, slave of Nicocreon (Aristot. Pol. 5.8.10; Diod. 15.47; Theopomp. Fr. iii. ed. Didot), and was succeeded by another son of the name of Nicocles. The Graeco-.Aegyptian fleet under Menelaus and his brother Ptolemy Soter was utterly defeated off the harbour of Salamis in a seafight, the greatest in all antiquity, by Demetrius Poliorcetes, B.C. 306. (Diod. 20.45-53.) The famous courtezan Lamia formed a part of the booty of Demetrius, over whom she soon obtained unbounded influence. Finally, Salamis came into the hands of Ptolemy. (Plut. Demetr. 35; Polyaen. Strateg. 5.) Under the Roman Empire the Jews were numerous in Salamis (Acts, 13.6), where they had more than one synagogue. The farming of the copper mines of the island to Herod (Joseph, Antiq. 15.14.5) may have swelled the numbers who were attracted by the advantages of its harbour and trade, especially its manufactures of embroidered stuffs. (Athen. 2.48.) In the memorable revolt of the Jews in the reign of Trajan this populous city became a desert. (Milman, Hist. of the Jews, vol. iii. pp. 111, 112.) Its demolition was completed by an earthquake; but it was rebuilt by a Christian emperor, from whom it was named CONSTANTIA It was then the metropolitan see of the island. Epiphanius, the chronicler of the heretical sects, was bishop of Constantia in A.D. 367. In thle reign of Heraclius the new town was destroyed by the Saracens. The ground lies low in the neighbourhood of Salamis, and the town was situated on a bight of the coast to the N. of the river Pediaeus. This low land is the largest plain--SALAMINIA--in Cyprus, stretching inward between the two mountain ranges to the very heart of the country where the modern Turkish capital--Nicosia--is situated. In the Life and Epistles of St. Paul, by Coneybeare and Howson (vol. i. p. 169), will be found a plan of the harbour and ruins of Salamis, from the survey made by Captain Graves. For coins of Salamis, see Eckhel, vol. iii. p. 87. - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed.