Appendix G. Étienne de Lusignan and ‘the God Cinaras’

More than once I have cited the sixteenth-century Franco-Cypriot historian Étienne de Lusignan, arguing for some independent, traditional authority behind several of his unique notices. [1] These included metallurgical and ceramic inventions attributed to his ‘Cinaras’, [2] with associated topographic details; an anonymous brother, whom I connected with some form of Kothar/Khousor; Agapenor’s displacement of the Paphian dynasty to Kourion rather than the Amathous of Theopompos; and the idea that Amathous was fortified by the legendary Assyrian king Ninos. [3] We must now examine Lusignan’s credentials more closely for how ancient material may indeed have come to him—whether through oral tradition, a written source now lost, or some combination. But we cannot give all his unique notices equal weight, since some are readily explained as deductions and concoctions from extant authorities and historiographical first principles.

Étienne, born 1527/1528, was a descendant of the royal house established on Cyprus by Guy de Lusignan in 1192, following Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem in 1187. Growing up during the time of Venetian control (1489–1571), he was bilingual in Italian and Greek, perhaps ‘reacquiring’ French only later in life. A Dominican friar and, from 1564–1568, vicar of Limassol, near ancient Amathous and Kourion, Lusignan sailed for Italy just before the Ottoman invasion of June 1570—clearly with good reason. His first decade of exile was consumed in ransoming family and producing two universal histories of his homeland. [4] The Chorograffia et breve historia universale was completed 1570–1573, but Lusignan must have begun his researches some years earlier on the island itself. This treatise, with its detailed discussion of recent centuries and physical resources, was intended to rouse western interest in reclaiming the island. But it also presented the most comprehensive account of Cypriot prehistory since antiquity itself. [5] Unfortunately the work was marred by numerous typesetting errors, many of which also escaped Lusignan’s errata, where he lamented the adverse conditions in which he labored. [6] Five years of further effort led to the more lucid and expansive Description de tout l’isle de Cypre (sic, 1580). But this revision gave a much reduced account of antiquity, with, for example, details about Cinaras hacked out—as if no one would be interested!

A thorough source-analysis of both works is needed. The present discussion of Cinaras and his family may serve as a preliminary case study. This material constitutes a single module in a complex archaeology that tried to harmonize Biblical authority, [7] the chronology of Eusebios/Jerome, and a variety of discordant classical sources. The resulting confusion of periods, peoples, and events is “quaintly garbled” to say the least. [8] Other absurdities arose from textual problems and/or a poor grasp of paleography. [9]

Lusignan names Jerome, Vergil, Strabo, Pliny, Horace, Ovid, Justin, and Plutarch as sources for the Chorograffia; Aristotle, Pausanias, and Diogenes Laertios were added for the Description. Most of his statements, however, lack explicit attribution, “so as not to bore my readers.” [10] Some data lacking from his acknowledged authorities can be plausibly traced to less glamorous works. Stephanos of Byzantium and Herodian, for instance, are the only extant sources for a Koureus, son of Kinyras, who reappears in Lusignan as ‘Curio’ or ‘Curion’ (see further below). [11] Yet these same works contain relevant material not found in Lusignan, raising questions about the nature of his engagement. [12] The historian’s appetite was clearly voracious, and he seems likely to have incorporated everything he found. But one may doubt the completeness of the manuscripts or editions from which he worked, in an age with few indices.

Boccaccio’s Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, produced under the patronage of Hugo IV of Cyprus two centuries earlier—and well served in Lusignan’s time by Bandini’s comprehensive index [13] —provided Lusignan with an authoritative foundation for his historical construction. That Boccaccio’s Cypriot material enjoyed quasi-official status is indicated by Florio Bustron’s Historia de Cipro, which appeared a decade or two before Lusignan’s own work (ca. 1565). [14] In his opening essay on antiquity, Bustron took over the unique dynastic sequence of Cilix > Pygmalion (emigrating from Cilicia) > Paphos > Cinara that Boccaccio had himself adopted from the mysterious Theodontius (who expanded Ovid: see Appendix F). [15] Bustron kept the eccentric spelling ‘Cinara’ against the Cinyras/Kinyras of all classical sources, [16] and maintained the distinction between an Assyrian and Cypriot ‘Cinara’. [17] He also reproduced, verbatim, Boccaccio’s statement that “of this Cypriot Cinara we have nothing beyond one crime” (the famous incest with ‘Mirra’). [18]

When Boccaccio’s and Bustron’s confession of ignorance is set against Lusignan’s own relatively detailed treatment of Cinaras and his line, it becomes clear that the younger historian saw here an opportunity to flesh out the island’s historical record. [19] Yet he wished to supplement his predecessors, not supplant them, for he too maintained the Theodontian sequence Cilix > Pygmalion > Paphos > Cinara(s). [20] Lusignan even took pains, in discussing the lost site of Kinyreia/Cinyreia mentioned by Pliny—whom he names as his source—to change it to ‘Cinaria’. [21] He must have regarded the Theodontian spelling ‘Cinara(s)’ as an authoritative antiquarian detail.

Theodontius and Boccaccio exerted a second decisive influence on Lusignan’s elaboration of Cinaras and his line. Theodontius had promoted the Trojan War as an important historical boundary in a euhemeristic critique of pagan religion, otherwise familiar from Church Fathers and many medieval authors. So too Boccaccio, by way of apology for his fascination with ancient mythology, reminded Hugo of This idea reappears in Lusignan’s ‘god-kings’ or ‘god-men’ (Re Dei and dei huomini), a line of preternaturally beautiful rulers whom “the people were virtually forced to revere and adore,” until their reign was interrupted by the intrusion of ‘Agapenore’ and other veterans from Troy. [23] Lusignan clung to this construction in both his works, despite problems raised by inconsistent traditions that he nevertheless wished to integrate.

A key problem was how to rationalize Adonis as successor to Cinaras’ throne—a not unreasonable idea asserted by Boccaccio and Bustron [24] —with Curio(n), another son unearthed by Lusignan himself. [25] One still senses his frustration with the dilemma. Observe first how he structures his introductory list of famous Cypriots through the use of ‘divine determinatives’: The startling appearance of a ‘god Cinaras’ here quickens one’s pulse with hopes of die-hard Cypriot folklore. Not impossible, perhaps. But a more prosaic explanation imposes itself: all of Lusignan’s ‘gods’ come from the sequence of tales in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (whence Theodontius, Boccaccio, and Bustron). Pygmalion was well suited to lead these self-styled ‘god-men’ because of his ivory statue-turned-queen (‘Eburne’). [28] Adonis too finds a natural place as the partner of Venus/Aphrodite—a favorite target of Christian polemicists, who treated her as a beautiful woman or even prostitute divinized by Kinyras. [29] Cupid too, of course, was well known as a god.

The pointedly non-divine status of Curio and Amaruco (both sons of Cinaras), and a second, younger Cinaras (son of Curio) definitely segregates these figures. That this relates precisely to Agapenor’s expulsion of the royal line from Paphos is shown by Lusignan’s continuous account, later in the Chorograffia, of “those who have dominated Cyprus.” Here the historian, after discussing Pygmalion and Paffo, states that “Cinara followed next in the kingdom; and other of their descendants; and they held royal power for around 300 and some years.” [30] Probably this three-century interval covers not Cinaras’ own descendants, [31] but the entire dynasty from Pygmalion down to a generation or two after the Trojan War. [32] In any case Lusignan, with no mention of Adonis, immediately goes on to Agapenore who “banished from the kingdom the kings who had descended from the gods”; they “moved to the city of Curias and reigned there and in other Cypriot cities.” [33] That these exiles are Curio and Cinaras II is clear from Lusignan’s account elsewhere of their foundations. [34] The conspicuous omission of Adonis here is of a piece with Lusignan’s statement, in the earlier entry dedicated to Curio, that this son of Cinaras “succeeded to the kingdom of his father” and founded Kourion “to make himself a name.” [35] These scattered passages, when reassembled like this, show clearly that Lusignan at one point envisioned a dynastic sequence Cinaras > Curio > Cinaras II.

Clearly Lusignan was struggling with discordant source material, with traces still visible thanks to the adverse conditions of the Chorograffia’s composition and publication. But he refused to abandon Curio and Cinaras II in the Description, and even attempted some further definition. Amaruco, Curio, and Cinaras II were now all granted divine status, as one might reasonably expect for descendants of ‘the god Cinaras’. [36] But there is a vital geopolitical qualification: Curio and Cinaras II were considered gods only in the cities that they had founded. [37] This revision does nothing to clarify the relationship between Adonis and Curio. Rather it reinforces the idea that Greek immigration after Troy was a cultural watershed, while still allowing some continuity of pre-Greek identity outside of Paphos.

There is obviously some artifice here. Curio/Koureus was probably never more than a cardboard eponym that Lusignan mined from Herodian or Stephanos. The younger Cinaras, Curio’s heir, must also be concocted. But several justifications were ready to hand. First, the distinction in Boccaccio/Bustron between an Assyrian and Cypriot Cinyras could have suggested that this was a recurring, even dynastic name. [38] Second, Ovid’s Cinyras must have seemed quite different from Pliny’s, who was a metallurgical inventor, and son not of Paphos but ‘Agrippa’ (sic). [39] Faced with this, Lusignan preserved the metallurgical Cinaras but wished to discard Pliny’s problematic paternity. [40] This was necessary if Cinaras II were to continue the royal line, an idea that I believe was motivated by a desire to accommodate insular tradition. For it is this same Cinaras II whom Lusignan credits with further crafts not found in Pliny; he associates these arts with—quite unexpectedly—Tamassos and Lapethos, where, he says, they were still practiced. [41] This appeal to present conditions strongly suggests that local craftsman maintained professional traditions about Kinyras. Of course they would have insisted that this was the Kinyras. Lusignan, I propose, harmonized his models’ Ovidian account with Cypriot tradition by creating Cinaras II, thus accommodating two seemingly different figures while side-stepping Pliny’s ‘Agrippa’. Note too how Cinaras II, as the end of the royal line, maintains Kinyras’ traditional position as a kind of cultural terminus.

If it seems incredible that Kinyras could have survived so long in Cypriot folklore, consider that fourteenth- and fifteenth-century travelers were entertained with remarkable variants on the Trojan War cycle, whereby Paphos became the site of Helen’s abduction and the gathering of the expedition against Troy. [42] Recall that Kinyras himself had featured in episodes of the Trojan cycle. [43] Such memories are consistent with the long-lasting impact of pagan cult on the island’s Christian landscape. Many basilicas and churches were built on or near ancient sanctuaries. [44] The Cypriot goddess was sometimes fused with Mary as the Panaghia Aphroditissa. [45] Lusignan himself alludes to signs that reverence for the old goddess still lingered. [46] Stones of the sanctuary at Old Paphos were still anointed in the name of the Panaghia, along with other fertility rituals, as late as the 1890s. [47] Comparable are the island’s rag-bushes, often associated with wells or pools believed to have healing properties, that are adorned by women wishing for husbands or babies, and those who are ill and have sick children or relatives. [48] The best known is at Petra tou Romiou near Old Paphos, where the ancient goddess was given by the foam. These great rocks, in one medieval tradition, were interpreted as missiles against the Saracens, thrown by the legendary Digenes defending his Queen—‘Righena’, a ubiquitous figure of Cypriot folklore who inherited many features of the island’s goddess. [49] But Aphrodite’s traditional birth endures at Chrysorogiatissa, whose monks have a legend that their sacred image of the Virgin was carried to Paphos by the waves. [50]

I have argued that Lusignan’s displacement of the Paphian line to Kourion must also have a traditional basis, being essentially compatible with Theopompos’ report that the Amathousians were the remnants of Kinyras’ men, yet expressed in different terms. [51] That Lusignan maintained the line Cinaras > Curio > Cinaras II in both his works, against the dominant paradigm Cinaras > Adonis established by his predecessors, suggests some deeper authority to which he felt beholden, notwithstanding his own active role in developing these figures. I conclude that Theopompos and Lusignan, despite their widely divergent dates, present parallel manifestations of regional Cypriot lore. This idea is strengthened by the mutual proximity of the places in question (Paphos, Amathous, Kourion). Lusignan, as vicar of Limassol, would have been ideally positioned to learn any such legends in the area. [52]

We should resist a strict distinction between ‘ancient sources’ and ‘oral tradition’. After all, the former were often originally based on the latter. And the testimony of ancient authors could itself feed back into oral tradition. An obvious locus for this is the island’s Orthodox clergy, the primary conservators of ancient literature. And where would texts touching Cyprus better survive than on the island itself? In assessing this suggestion, and its relevance to Lusignan’s early research, one must bear in mind that fourteenth-century Cyprus saw a major efflorescence of manuscript production. This movement is now difficult to appraise. Of the nine hundred or so manuscripts known to have been copied on the island, only a third still reside there. And there must have been many more. Some were donated by pilgrims to other monasteries of the Orthodox world, and so vanished. Many more were removed by humanist collectors of the fifteenth century, with further losses under the Ottomans. [53]

Under these conditions, it is quite conceivable that Lusignan was exposed to ancient learning now lost, if only through discussion with his Orthodox peers. [54] One is therefore struck by Lusignan’s terse statements about a certain Xenophon: This Cypriot Xenophon appears again, in Lusignan’s list of famous Cypriots, as “a philosopher and historian, though where he was from, and when he lived, we do not discover; however, he was from Cyprus.” [56] By the Description, Lusignan had apparently learned a bit more: he now states that Xenophon was from Salamis, taught others beside Strabo, and wrote several works (still unnamed). [57]

Given Xenophon’s description as both a philosopher and teacher of Strabo, one must suspect some confusion here, by Lusignan or an informant, with the Peripatetic Xenarkhos, whose lectures Strabo says he attended. [58] But this cannot be the whole story. Even if one supposes some textual corruption (I find no such variant in the editions), the geographer clearly states that Xenarkhos was from Seleucia in Cilicia. Any attempt to override this with a Cypriot origin would therefore have required some external motivation. [59]

As it happens, another Cypriot Xenophon was known to the Suda:

“This too” refers to a further pair of Xenophons who also wrote erōtiká—one the familiar Ephesian novelist, another from Antioch. [61] Because the three entries are so similar, it is often held that a single Xenophon gave rise to spurious doubles through his stories’ geographical settings. [62] By this argument, Xenophon of Antioch would have the greatest claim to authenticity, the other two being explicable by the Cypriot context of Kinyras, Myrrha, and Adonis, and the extant Ephesian Tale (a Babylōniaká is less obviously connected with Antioch). One could then suppose that the bogus Cypriot Xenophon was adopted by Lusignan or some other patriot wishing to elaborate the island’s glorious past.

But this hypothesis, though it seems reasonable enough in isolation, creates as many problems as it solves. First, I have found no clear sign that Lusignan used the Suda otherwise. One would certainly expect him to have credited his elusive Xenophon with a work about Kinyras, had he seen notice of it. And what becomes of the claim about Strabo? Are we to believe that Lusignan (or someone else) combined a stray dictionary entry with a careless or willful distortion of the geographer’s reference to Xenarkhos, without taking over any further biographical details? Similarly, one might suggest that Lusignan’s characterization of Xenophon as a philosopher derives from combining the Suda with one of the several Xenophons listed by Diogenes Laertios. [63] But how then did Strabo enter the picture? These attempts to explain away Lusignan’s Cypriot historian and philosopher start to seem rather strained.

We should therefore entertain the possibility of a real Cypriot Xenophon who wrote about Kinyras, Myrrha, and Adonis—tales that would certainly appeal to a native islander. Just what form this would have taken is unclear, although the Suda’s terms historikós and historía would be consistent with a mythological romance. [64] Might this not be Diogenes Laertios’ fifth Xenophon, described as “having busied himself with mythological wonders”? [65] The context of Kinyras and Adonis would also give a good home to a free-floating report in Athenaios: “the Phoenicians, as Xenophon says, used to use gíngras-like double-pipes, a span in length, making a high, wailing sound.” [66] This instrument is nowhere mentioned by the Athenian Xenophon, nor the Ephesian; accordingly editors have challenged the text.

Could some of Lusignan’s unique Kinyras material derive from Xenophon, if not directly—the historian knew little about him—but via some earlier interaction of written and oral tradition? Local lore might well have preserved the name of a famous Cypriot ‘historian’, philosopher, and perhaps teacher of Strabo.