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In Cyprus Evagoras of Salamis, who was of most noble birth, since he was descended from the founders of the city,1 but had previously been banished because of some factional quarrels and had later returned in company with a small group, drove out Abdemon of Tyre, who was lord of the city and a friend of the King of the Persians. When he took control of the city, Evagoras was at first king only of Salamis, the largest and strongest of the cities of Cyprus; but when he soon acquired great resources and mobilized an army, he set out to make the whole island his own. [2] Some of the cities he subdued by force and others he won over by persuasion. While he easily gained control of the other cities, the peoples of Amathus, Soli, and Citium resisted him with arms and dispatched ambassadors to Artaxerxes the King of the Persians to get his aid. They accused Evagoras of having slain King Agyris, an ally of the Persians, and promised to join the King in acquiring the island for him. [3] The King, not only because he did not wish Evagoras to grow any stronger, but also because he appreciated the strategic position of Cyprus and its great naval strength whereby it would be able to protect Asia in front, decided to accept the alliance. He dismissed the ambassadors and for himself sent letters to the cities situated on the sea and to their commanding satraps to construct triremes and with all speed to make ready everything the fleet might need; and he commanded Hecatomnus, the ruler of Caria, to make war upon Evagoras. [4] Hecatomnus traversed the cities of the upper satrapies and crossed over to Cyprus in strong force. [5]

Such was the state of affairs in Asia. In Italy the Romans concluded peace with the Falisci and waged war for the fourth time on the Aequi; they also sent a colony to Sutrium but were expelled by the enemy from the city of Verrugo.

1 Evagoras traced his ancestry to Teucer, the founder of Salamis (Paus. 1.3.2; Paus. 8.15.7). In addition to the further facts of Evagoras' career given by Diodorus (chap. 110.5; Book 15.2-4, 8-9, 47), this distinguished king and faithful friend of Athens is well known from the panegyric bearing his name composed by Isocrates about 365 B.C.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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