ARSINOE
Cyprus.
There were at least three
towns so named, all three on the coast. A fourth one in
the interior is rather doubtful. One was formerly Marion
on the NW coast near Cape Arnauti, another at modern
Famagusta on the E coast, and the third somewhere between Old and New Paphos on the SW coast. As to the
fourth, it is said to be at Arsos in the Limassol district.
Of the four, only the first has been explored.
The best known Arsinoe is the former Marion (q.v.).
After Alexander the Great, Stasioikos II, the last king
of Marion, sided with Antigonos against Ptolemy. In
312 B.C. the city was razed by Ptolemy and its inhabitants were transferred to Paphos. On the ruins a new
city was founded about 270 B.C. by Ptolemy Philadelphus
who renamed it after his wife and sister. We probably
know more of this Arsinoe than of its predecessor
Marion.
The ruins of this town are to be found to the N of
the modern village of Polis. Part of the site is now a
field of ruins under cultivation and part is inhabited,
but the town may have extended S under the modern
village. The necropolis, also the Classical necropolis of
Marion, lies mainly to the S. This Arsinoe is well known
to geographers and historians (
Strab. 14.683; Ptol. 5.14.4;
Plin. HNT 5.130; Steph. Byz.). The
Stadiasmus (309)
and inscriptions record it. The town flourished during
the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman era, and in Early
Christian times it became the seat of a bishop. The site
has never been excavated. Some soundings made in 1929
were intended to locate the earlier city.
From an inscription of the 3d c. B.C. we know that
there was a Hellenistic gymnasium but its position remains unknown. There was probably a theater but we
have no evidence although its position can be conjectured. We learn from Strabo that there was a Sacred
Grove to Zeus and from an inscription of the time of
Tiberius we are told of the existence of a Temple of
Zeus and Aphrodite. The site of a sanctuary is known
at the far end of a small ridge at Maratheri, E of the
ancient town. This sanctuary may well be that of Zeus
and Aphrodite mentioned in the above inscription, which
almost certainly came from this site. This cult may be
earlier for on some coins of Stasioikos II is shown on
the obverse the head of Zeus and on the reverse that of
Aphrodite. In fact, casual finds also date this sanctuary
from the archaic to the Graeco-Roman period. The site
is the most important town in Cyprus of this name and
as we know of many Arsinoeia in the island we may
presume that there was one here too.
A number of tombs of the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman era were excavated in the necropolis S of Polis.
These tombs contain the familiar Hellenistic and Roman
pottery and other furniture and very often are rich in
jewelry. However, there is nothing to be seen at present
above ground.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
D. G. Hogarth,
Devia Cypria (1889);
Einar Gjerstad et al.,
Swedish Cyprus Expedition II
(1935) s.v. Marion; Sir George Hill,
A History of Cyprus I
(1949);
RE, s.v.
Arsinoe. K. NICOLAOU
