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TREMITHOUS (Tremetousia) Cyprus.

The site of a small town identified with Tremithous is partly occupied by the modern village in the Mesaoria plain. The necropolis lies to the S. This town seems to have flourished from Hellenistic to Early Byzantine times.

Nothing is known of its founding. Its later history, however, is fairly well known for it is mentioned by Ptolemy (5.14.6), who counts it as one of the interior towns of Cyprus, and by Stephanus Byzantius. In Early Christian times it became the seat of a bishop. Its first bishop was Spyridon, who was present at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and at that of Sardica in 343-344.

The worship of Apollo is attested by an inscription. Another inscription records a horoscope of Flavian date. The road system in Roman times connected Tremithous directly with Salamis and Kition.

Towards the end of the 19th c. an excavation uncovered a number of tombs of the Hellenistic period producing mainly plain pottery. The town site, however, is unexcavated though many finds have been recorded among which are a number of inscribed funerary cippi.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. K. Peristianes, Γενικὴ Ἱστορία τῆς νήσου Κύπρου (1910) 633-37.

K. NICOLAOU

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