13. The Talents of Kinyras

Our analysis of Cypriot iconography and the prehistory of kinýra (and associated music) is compatible with the idea that Kinyras could go back to the pre-Greek island in some form. And after all, our best evidence for divinized instruments is of BA date, from Kinnaru of Ugarit on back to third-millennium Mesopotamia. And, as it happens, while the fifth-century Pindar is our earliest literary source for a musical Kinyras, the bulk of Greco-Roman notices, from Homer onwards, do connect him with the pre-Greek LBA, which was evidently remembered as a kind of Golden Age. [1] The material may be divided into two parts. The first, to be collected and contextualized in the present chapter, links Kinyras to Cypriot industries, which, though pursued throughout the IA, greatly flourished in the LBA, the age of Alashiya. The second group (Chapter 14) confirms and extends this view by connecting Kinyras to the island’s pre-Greek population(s), whence he is variously encountered in Aegean migration legends.

The first point which allies Kinyras closely to LBA Cyprus is that many sources regard him as king over the whole island. [2] A political structure of comparable extent and duration did not reappear after the fall of Alashiya until the island came under Ptolemaic control. [3] True, Euagoras of Salamis aimed for island-wide power and influence in the late fifth century, and even won some ephemeral holdings in Phoenicia. Yet this exception proves the rule, since Euagoras himself found it expedient to pose as a descendant of Kinyras in support of his pan-Cypriot pretentions. [4]

Kinyras’ status as a Great King is already assumed by Homer, for whom the Cypriot monarch, sending Agamemnon the corselet of Iliad 11, treated on equal terms. [5] As Eustathios and the scholia rightly suggest, the verb kharizómenos (‘cultivating favor’), with its connotations of reciprocity, shows that the thṓrax was no “penalty for not serving” (unlike the magical horse Aithe with which Ekhepolos of Sicyon bought his freedom from Troy—Ekhepolos acted “under compulsion” since Agamemnon was “his own king”). [6] Gift-giving of course remained a fundamental practice in the IA Aegean. But Agamemnon’s clear and traditional characterization as a Great King (“lord of many islands”) justifies seeing Kinyras’ breastplate as an epic memory of the exchange networks of the LBA ‘Club of Great Powers’—to which, after all, both Alashiya and Ahhiyawa belonged. [7] Despite Homer’s ample description, the corselet is not, like the shield of Achilles, so elaborate as to defy all reality—although in the real world something this ornamental would have been for ceremonial display rather than battle. [8] The poet’s ecphrasis includes details reminiscent of Canaanite workmanship; its precious materials—gold, tin, and enamel (kýanos)—are all attested as palatial commodities in the Mycenaean world, where the word thṓrax itself was also current. [9]

Agamemnon’s daedalic thṓrax shows that Homer already knew the Cypriot king both as a famous metallurge (see below) and proverbially wealthy. The riches of Kinyras are mentioned already by Tyrtaios (ca. 650), who pairs him with Midas; according to the proverb, “rich was Midas, but thrice as rich Kinyras”; elsewhere he is ranked alongside Kroisos and Sardanapalos. [10] This facet of Kinyras echoes the large and varied treasures—fine cloth, horses, chariots, ivory, ebony, gold, and “very great quantities of silver”—which the Alashiyan kings received from Egypt in exchange for mountains of copper. [11] Cyprus also heads Homer’s catalogue of lands from which Menelaos reestablished his fortune after Troy. [12] Eustathios, discussing the Agamemnon-Kinyras passage, says that Cyprus’s wealth and general prosperity were bywords. [13]

Kinyras’ proverbial wealth epitomizes a portfolio of other traditions associating him with industries which flourished on LBA Cyprus. [14] Not all products documented in the Alashiya texts, or in the archaeological record, are connected with Kinyras in literary sources. He has no legendary involvement, for instance, with worked ivory, fine cloth, or faience. Yet this is itself significant: these latter industries were not peculiar to Cyprus, but more widely cultivated (and ivory had to be imported). [15] Kinyras’ dominant associations are rather with metallurgy and the sea, those archetypal Cypriot activities. But this rule was not hard and fast since, as we shall see, he was also connected with the perfumed oil industry, pottery, and building materials.

It should be signaled here that Kinyras’ nonmusical powers are one sign that he underwent early syncretism with Kothar, the Syro-Levantine craftsman god. I shall treat this complex problem, with collateral phenomena from the mainland and Mycenaean Pylos, in Chapters 17, 18, and 19.

With some four million tons of slag produced during Cyprus’s premodern history, the copper industry’s long-term impact on the island’s physical landscape, settlement patterns, and social organization was profound. [16] Alashiya is first definitely attested ca. 1900 in the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend, discovered among the texts of the Assyrian merchant colony at Kanesh in central Anatolia. It is claimed as a conquest by the Old Akkadian emperor Sargon (ca. 2340), who had by now become a figure of legend, his historical exploits variously expanded and adjusted to suit local horizons. [17] There can be little doubt that mainland interest in Alashiya was already driven by the island’s rich copper deposits. Alashiyan copper is mentioned in eighteenth-century economic texts from Mari, Babylon, and Alalakh. [18] This is also when evidence mounts for extracting and processing around the copper sources of the Troodos, where Near Eastern imports now begin to appear. [19] Copper-interests also dominate correspondence between Alashiya and Egypt in the fourteenth-century Amarna letters, clearly driving the other commodities exchanged. [20] That the copper trade peaked at this time explains the appearance of monumental ashlar buildings at many sites (especially in the thirteenth century).

It has been well observed that Kinyras’ metallurgical associations preserve an early cultural stratum of island-wide significance—older, that is, than the Paphian dimension which the historical Kinyradai emphasized, and which became conventional (as shown by many and later extra-Cypriot sources). [21] To be sure, Paphos was itself a site of LBA metalworking. [22] But the traditions indicate a pan-Cypriot focus. The elder Pliny states that “the first discovery of copper/bronze was in Cyprus,” [23] and lists the metallurgical inventions associated with Kinyras, alongside the working of clay: For once a prôtos heuretḗs sounds a realistic note, since in a monarchic society ultimate control of mines and production processes will have rested in a single pair of royal hands.

This rich little catalogue of metallurgical inventions is otherwise unparalleled in surviving ancient sources. It reappears, however, in Étienne de Lusignan, who, while elsewhere acknowledging Pliny as an authority, [27] adds several independent details. His ‘Cinaras’ has now also discovered the mining of gold; and his clay-working abilities have expanded from tile-making to bricks, bowls, and other shaped vessels. Lusignan connects these further industries specifically with Tamassos and Lapethos, where he states they were still cultivated in his own day. [28] Now the tegulae of Pliny and Lusignan’s pottery (vasi fittili) would converge neatly in the single Greek word kéramos; but while Pliny’s dependence on a Greek source is undoubted (Eratosthenes?), how could such information come down to Lusignan? (I shall contemplate his possible sources further in Appendix G.)

“The talents of Kinyras,” a curious proverb used of fair and scrupulous dealings, probably also relates to the Cypriot copper industry and specifically the ‘oxhide’ ingots that were the standard form for raw copper distribution in the LBA. [29] The scale of this trade was dramatically revealed by the fourteenth-century Uluburun shipwreck, discovered in 1982 off the southwestern coast of Turkey. [30] Its cargo is a microcosm of the LBA palatial macroeconomy, and included—besides the processed tortoise shells for lutes already mentioned [31] —ebony, faience, ivory, amber, gold, terebinth resin, and coriander, along with other materials and goods of wide-ranging provenance (Cypriot, Canaanite, Mycenaean, Egyptian, Nubian, Baltic, Babylonian, Assyrian, Kassite). But the ship’s main haul was raw metals: 354 ingots of copper and some forty more of tin, the majority of oxhide shape. Because the cargo is mixed, the point-of-origin remains uncertain. But Cyprus was at least a major port of call, providing all the copper (as indicated by lead isotope analysis). [32] This fact, and the huge quantity involved—eleven tons—make it quite certain that this stage at least of the ship’s voyage was directly sponsored by an Alashiyan king. This would also accord with the dominance of Cypriot pottery on board. [33]

In any case, it is clear from the Amarna letters and Ugaritian texts that shipbuilding, shipping, and timber were major Alashiyan industries. [34] This was intimately related to the metals trade, since wood was needed for smelting and the ships that carried oxhide ingots. The extent and depth of these activities is vividly suggested by Eratosthenes, as paraphrased in Strabo’s description of Cyprus: Eratosthenes seems to allude to a Cypriot popular memory of a time when the island’s ships ‘commanded’ the seas. Similarly, Cyprus appears in the ancient thalassocracy-lists, immediately before Phoenicia and Egypt. [36] There have been various attempts to match this list’s sea-powers with historical epochs; that of Cyprus is often placed in the ninth or eighth centuries. [37] Such analyses are inevitably undermined by the list’s obvious artificiality, especially for the alleged sea-powers of earlier times. For the LBA, in particular, the thalassocratic model has been well challenged; still, it is certain that Cyprus played a key role in LBA trade between the Aegean, the Levant, and Egypt. [38] If the Cypriot ‘thalassocracy’ rests on any genuine tradition, the ‘historical precedence’ of Cyprus over Phoenicia makes it quite possible that this reflects some popular memory of Alashiyan maritime activity. Eratosthenes certainly envisioned a very early horizon for “the sea being sailed in force.”

In later times too, of course, Cyprus was renowned for its seamanship and shipbuilding. [39] The legendary Assyrian queen Semiramis was said by Ktesias (fl. ca. 400) to have used Cypriot, Phoenician, and Syrian shipwrights to build a fleet with which to assault India. [40] An inscription of Sennacherib (704–681), indeed, states that the Assyrian emperor used captive Cypriot and Phoenician sailors in his sixth campaign against Elam (694), sending them down the Tigris from Nineveh. [41] There were also major Cypriot contingents at various times in the fleets of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Ptolemies. [42]

But the Cypriots must have been mariners since the island’s first settlement in the seventh millennium. Two clay vases in the shape of boats, with figures of sailors and birds attached around the edge, have been dated to the MBA. [43] A number of other ship models, both merchant and war, are known from the LBA and especially Cypro-Archaic period, attesting a continuous artistic tradition, which obviously parallels this dominant aspect of island life. Many examples have been found in the necropolis of Amathous. [44] For some scholars, these vessels merely reflect the lifetime occupations of the tombs’ inhabitants. Others see them as symbolizing a voyage to the next world, perhaps under Egyptian influence (model ships have also been found in Mesopotamian tombs). [45] These explanations may work for burial contexts. But what are we to make of further examples from the harbor of Amathous? Cesnola first compared these to the tradition that Kinyras deceived Agamemnon with a fleet of clay ships, which he cast into the sea. [46] The custom is so unusual, and its coincidence with the tale so perfect, that here surely we have a Greek or Greek-Cypriot literary reflection on a distinctive practice of pre-Greek culture—recalling that the Eteocypriot language long endured at Amathous, whose inhabitants were held to be “the remnants of Kinyras’ men.” [47]

But what do the sunken ship-models mean? V. Karageorghis reasonably suggested that sailors submerged them apotropaically to ensure a safe voyage [48] —an idea that could also account for those from the necropolis, with death seen as a hazardous voyage. [49] Nor should we overlook the use of model boats in Hurrian and Mesopotamian purification rituals. These carried away, into the sea (often symbolically) and from the eyes of the gods, impurities arising from curses, oaths, and perjuries (note that Kinyras is the ‘liar-king’ only in this episode). [50] One of the texts, known as the babilili-Ritual, derives from the same Kizzuwatnan ‘workshop’ that produced Establishing a New Temple for the Goddess of the Night. [51] It is a royal ritual, addressed to an Ishtar-type (Pirinkir), and contains some twenty-five incantations in Akkadian (West Peripheral, but deriving from an OB tradition) for calling upon the goddess. They were to be sung by a lúNAR, which in Syro-Hurrian tradition, we saw, would be a ‘kinnarist’. [52] This real-world material from the LBA helps us see how Kinyras, though rooted in ritual music, could grow extra-musical associations.

Other links between Kinyras and the sea include Pindar’s reference to the “blessed fortune … which freighted Kinyras with riches once upon a time in Cyprus-on-the-sea.” [53] A character named Kinyras in Lucian’s True History is made the son of a Cypriot sailor called Skintharos: this Kinyras is of considerable interest, because he plays a Paris-like role in an alternative abduction of Helen. [54] ‘Kinyras’ also appears as a typical mariner’s name in two tasteful epigrams by Julian of Egypt (sixth century CE), both referring to a humble old fisherman who has retired. [55] In the first, Kinyras devotes his nets to the nymphs—a considerable sacrifice, as these are his only possessions of value. His expertise is made clear in the second: the fish will rejoice, because the sea is now liberated. This aged ‘Kinyras’ appears to be a type, recalling the 160-year lifespan that Anakreon attributed to the royal Kinyras in a lost poem. [56] Proverbial longevity, incidentally, might be taken to reflect the great historical antiquity of Kinyras. [57] And the lowly status of Julian’s Kinyras seems a pointed inversion of the legendary Cypriot king’s fabulous riches.

Several indirect marine connections may also be suggested. First is the myth that Kinyras’ fifty daughters were metamorphosed into halcyons (seabirds). [58] The role of Aphrodite and Astarte as patronesses of sailors—the former’s cult-titles include Eúploia (‘Good Sailing’) and Einalía or Pontía (‘Marina’)—is one of several interests Kinyras shares with the goddess he served. [59] Finally the fish that appears on one of the lyre-player seals is perhaps worth noting. [60]

The Spartan (or Lydian) poet Alkman (ca. 625), in an otherwise spare fragment, refers to perfume as the “moist charm of Kinyras.” [61] This elaborate periphrasis links Kinyras to another Cypriot industry stretching back to the LBA. Oil generally, and perfumed oil specifically, are mentioned in connection with Cyprus in Linear B, Ugaritic, and Egyptian sources. [62] Scented oils were exchanged between the kings of Alashiya and Egypt. [63] A large oil distribution to an Alashiyan is attested at Ugarit, and an excavated depot there contained some thousand flasks for the scented salves of Cyprus. [64] On the island itself, the massive ashlar warehouse at Kalavasos (Building X) could store as much as 50,000 liters of oil in six-foot-high terracotta jars (recall that Kinyras also invented clay vessels). [65] That Cypriot oil-processing was, like copper, under divine protection is suggested by industrial facilities associated with several sanctuary sites. [66] There is a parallel from Mycenaean Pylos, where one unguent boiler is qualified as ‘Potnian’, [67] and Cypriots apparently collaborated in the perfume industry there. [68]

Cypriot scents continued strong into the IA. Besides Alkman, Greek epic regularly has Aphrodite slathered in perfumed oils by her graceful handmaidens at Paphos. [69] Furthermore, as we saw, Kinyras is persistently linked to aromatics by his daughter Myrrha, the personification of myrrh (Chapter 12). We may also deal here with the perfumer Amaracus (to give the Latin form we find), metamorphosed into marjoram (Gk. amárakos). Our oldest source for the tale is Servius: The verse of the Aeneid to which this notice was attached relates to Venus’ abduction of Ascanius, whom she hides “in the high groves / of Idalion, where soft amaracus exhaling / with flowers and sweet shade embraces him.” [72] Servius and other commentators often attached gratuitous aetiologies where not really justified by the original text. Here, however, Vergil’s intentionally ambiguous syntax and diction, which permit both concrete and personified readings (note especially adspirans complectitur), strongly suggest that he is indeed alluding to the Amaracus tale. If so, it would readily imply, given the setting of Idalion, that Amaracus himself was a Cypriot prince. It then becomes quite possible that he was the son of Kinyras himself.

Unfortunately, this idea is not confirmed by any extant ancient source; the few other notices are clearly dependent upon Servius. [73] Nevertheless, Amaracus as the son of Kinyras achieved some currency after it was presented matter-of-factly by the Italian humanist Julius Pomponius Laetus (‘Sabinus’) in his commentary on Vergil (1487–1490). [74] That it was his own deduction, and not drawn from some lost work, is indicated by his reference to Pliny, who states that “the best and most fragrant sampsuchum or amaracum is in Cyprus.” [75] It was certainly an inspired guess, and may even be right. [76] Pomponius was presumably the source for Étienne de Lusignan, whose version may nevertheless be given as being our most expansive version of the tale, with details otherwise unparalleled. Here ‘Amaraco’, who “gave himself to making ointments,” is called a son of “the god Cinaras” and a “Chirurgien”; he too, we are told, came to be numbered among the gods. Having perfected a recipe, he was bringing it to his father “in an alabaster vessel” (probably Lusignan’s own elaboration of Pliny [77] ) when he dropped the batch:

Kinyras’ multifaceted role as a Cypriot culture-hero contrasts strongly with the ‘liar king’ tradition that was developed in one branch of Grecophone epic. [80] The virtuous Kinyras was clearly the dominant paradigm.

Kinyras’ virtues are further reflected in the names of his children. In Greek mythology, names often reflect the deeds or qualities of a father or grandfather. Odysseus, Telemakhos, Neoptolemos, and Megapenthes are a few ready examples. [81] Such speaking-names were also used to help structure myth. There is a clear and extensive example in the legend of Battos, founder of Cyrene. [82] Similarly, the drama of Achilles and Patroklos is encoded in their names. [83] If one may detect this principle at work in Kinyras’ family, a son Oxyporos would celebrate the ‘Swift-Passage’ of Cypriot ships. [84] A father called Eurymedon, ‘Wide-Ruler’, could evoke the competitive territorialism, by land or by sea, chariot or ship, of the Great Kings. [85] Daughters like Orsedike, Laodike, and Laogore should endow their father respectively with ‘Rousing Justice’, ‘Justice for the People’, and the ability to ‘Assemble the People’ (and perhaps ‘Speak to the People’). [86] Unfortunately, we lack any narrative treatment of these figures that could give them the life one sees in the Battos myth—though I shall attempt to reconstruct a lost tale that featured Orsedike, Laogore, and a third sister Braisia (see Chapter 21).

Kinyras recurs in other sources as a paragon of virtue. Pindar, we saw, refers to the “beloved deeds” or “friendly acts” that earned him celebration in Cypriot song, the “reward of virtue.” [87] In Nemean 8, when Pindar alludes to Kinyras’ maritime riches, it is a positive and pious example: his blessed wealth was so long-lived because it was “planted with a god.” [88] A lost Hellenistic tragedy about Kinyras and Myrrha will have portrayed the king in noble terms, to achieve a sufficient reversal-of-fortune (as prescribed by Aristotle). [89] Ovid’s Myrrha describes her father as “pious and mindful of propriety,” [90] and this will have been a feature of Cinna’s earlier treatment in the famous Zmyrna. [91]

A virtuous Kinyras is also attested in extra-Cypriot contexts. Besides the ‘one good man’ of Cilicia in an epigram in the Greek Anthology, and Abdalonymos the ‘last of the Kinyradai’ at Sidon, [92] there is also a “certain slave, Cinyras by name,” who appears in Dictys of Crete as a member of Acastus’ household—slain by Neoptolemos during the hero’s extended homecoming. While this Cinyras displays no clear connection to the Homeric figure, his description as “very faithful” (perquam fidus) is perhaps in keeping with other traditions about the Cypriot king’s virtues (it is notable that this otherwise unimportant character is named at all). [93]

An admirable Kinyras is also implied by the use of ‘Kinyras’ as a PN. [94] In three epigraphic examples, unsurprisingly, there is insufficient context to corroborate this. [95] Clearer is a funeral inscription from Cos (Roman imperial period), commemorating a gladiator “Zeuxis, a.k.a. Kinyras.” [96] It was common practice for gladiators to assume or be assigned performing names, typically an internationally recognized mythological figure who matched the image he wished to project, probably often for his style of fighting or other physical abilities. Names implying power, victory, and glory, are also frequent. [97] ‘Kinyras’ has seemed an odd choice to some. [98] His virtuous and kingly associations are probably relevant. But gladiators named after famous loverboys (Hyakinthos, Narkissos, Hylas, Patroklos, and Adonis) equally suggest Kinyras’ legendary beauty. [99] And since all of these youths died (or disappeared) tragically young, their names would be doubly effective with the professional threat of death ever-present. This suggests some connection between Zeuxis’ performing name and the trope of Kinyras the Lamenter (Chapter 12). [100]

Kinyras is consistently associated in Greco-Roman sources with industries typical of Alashiya/LBA Cyprus. While these same activities continued into the IA, this was a period of political fragmentation, hence smaller-scale operations. A fortiori the Kinyras traditions, which present him as the fountainhead of these activities, should relate first to the Golden Age of Cypriot popular memory.

The various ‘Kinyrases’ found in extra-Cypriot contexts, like those for whom a Cypriot setting is not explicit (for instance, Julian of Egypt’s fisherman), nevertheless usually resonate with the Kinyras. They should not be dismissed as irrelevant for understanding the Cypriot legends. [101] Since their sympathies go well beyond what is found in the portraits of Homer and Ovid, they must reflect a broader, multiform tradition of which Cypriot Kinyras is merely the dominant example. The two types of material are after all linked by traditions that saw Kinyras as an immigrant to Cyprus from various parts of the mainland (see Part Three).