Christian Körner
ELECTRUM, Volume 27, 2020, pp. 67 - 87
https://doi.org/10.4467/20800909EL.20.004.12794Until the middle of the 5th century BC, Athens and Persia were struggling for supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. Due to its strategic importance, the island of Cyprus was affected by this conflict. Several Athenian interventions in Cyprus can be reconstructed from the written sources. Parallel to this larger conflict, wars between Cypriot kingdoms seem to have been an essential feature of the island’s fragmented political landscape. Apparently, both forms of conflict—inner-Cypriot wars and interventions from the outside—affected each other.
In the following paper, I will analyse the interventions and conflicts in Cyprus in the 5th century BC and assess the role played by the Cypriot kings. In terms of method, I will approach these questions by analysing the written sources that provide information concerning political conflicts on the island during the 5th century BC. I will take a Cypriot perspective in order to show how inner-Cypriot rivalries intersected with the relationship to the major powers in the region. The overall impression is that between the unsuccessful Cypriot Revolt in 498 BC and the accession to the throne of the most powerful ruler of the island, Evagoras I of Salamis (before 411 BC), the local kingdoms were rather the objects of Athenian and Persian interests than active players in the larger conflicts.
Christian Körner
ELECTRUM, Volume 23, 2016, pp. 25 - 49
https://doi.org/10.4467/20800909EL.16.002.5821At the end of the eighth century, Cyprus came under Assyrian control. For the following four centuries, the Cypriot monarchs were confronted with the power of the Near Eastern empires. This essay focuses on the relations between the Cypriot kings and the Near Eastern Great Kings from the eighth to the fourth century BC. To understand these relations, two theoretical concepts are applied: the centre-periphery model and the concept of suzerainty. From the central perspective of the Assyrian and Persian empires, Cyprus was situated on the western periphery. Therefore, the local governing traditions were respected by the Assyrian and Persian masters, as long as the petty kings fulfilled their duties by paying tributes and providing military support when requested to do so. The personal relationship between the Cypriot kings and their masters can best be described as one of suzerainty, where the rulers submitted to a superior ruler, but still retained some autonomy. This relationship was far from being stable, which could lead to manifold misunderstandings between centre and periphery. In this essay, the ways in which suzerainty worked are discussed using several examples of the relations between Cypriot kings and their masters.