The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3)

Such then is the position of Cyprus.

5. It is not inferior in fertility to any one of the islands, for it produces good wine and oil, and sufficient corn to supply the wants of the inhabitants. At Tamassus there are abundant mines of copper, in which the calcanthus is found, and rust of copper, useful for its medicinal properties.

Eratosthenes says, that anciently the plains abounded with timber, and were covered with forests, which prevented cultivation; the mines were of some service towards clearing the surface, for trees were cut down to smelt the copper and silver. Besides this, timber was required for the construction of fleets, as the sea was now navigated with security and by a large naval force; but when even these means were insufficient to check the growth of timber in the forests, permission was given to such as were able and inclined, to cut down the trees and to hold the land thus cleared as their own property, free from all payments.

6. Formerly the Cyprian cities were governed by tyrants, but from the time that the Ptolemaïc kings were masters of Egypt, Cyprus also came into their power, the Romans frequently affording them assistance. But when the last Ptolemy that was king, brother of the father of Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt in our time, had conducted himself in a disorderly manner, and was ungrateful to his benefactors, he was deposed, and the Romans took possession of the island, which became a Prætorian province by itself.

The chief author of the deposition of the king was Pub. Claudius Pulcher, who having fallen into the hands of the Cilician pirates, at that time at the height of their power, and a ransom being demanded of him, despatched a message to the king, entreating him to send it for his release. The king sent a ransom, but of so small an amount, that the pirates disdained to accept it, and returned it, but they dismissed Pulcher without any payment. After his escape, he remembered what he owed to both parties; and when he became tribune of the people, he had sufficient influence to have Marcus [CAS. 684] Cato sent to deprive the king of the possession of Cyprus. The latter put himself to death before the arrival of Cato, who, coming soon afterwards, took possession of Cyprus, sold the king’s property, and conveyed the money to the public treasury of the Romans.

From this time the island became, as it is at present, a Prætorian province. During a short intervening period Antony had given it to Cleopatra and her sister Arsinoë, but upon his death all his arrangements were annulled.