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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 311

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DRUM MOND. 3(11 founded by the king's daughter, who built the Spitia tia Reginas, upon the top of an almost inaccessible rock, two miles farther up in the mountains. This night I lodged at Pahecitrcea, about three miles from Citrie-a. It had been one of the ancient Cytheras. or Cythereas, of which there were several in the island; but I saw no vestige of antiquity: Indeed I was conducted to a place where the foundation of a temple, sacred to the queen of love, remained about a foot high some years ago; but the cadi, in order to save the expence of working a quarry, ordered the stones to be removed and employed in building an house for his women. I should not be sony to hear they had tumbled down upon this barbarous (foth, and crushed him in the embraces of his favourite concubine, provided the innocent girl could escape unhurt. I have already said something of the country of Massari», anciently Macaria, through which I now travel, and it affords nothing new to communicate. ^ Abont four miles N.N.E. Famagosta appear the ruins of the famous Salamis, built by Teucer, of which I have taken some notice in a former letter. I saw a great many foundations, which I conceived to be the remains of different fabrics; but I shall mention none except those of the celebrated temple dedicated to Jupiter Salamine, for they are so distinct that I cannot Well mistake them. It is an hundred and ninety-two feet in length, seventy-two in breadth ; the walls are four feet thick, besides cloisters for the priests, their apparatus and attendants, which run the whole length of the temple on the south side, and are in breadth twenty-one feet within walls, with an entry different from that of the temple. Nothing is now to be seen but the vaults below, which supported the temple, aud some parts of the Avails above : the vaults are uncovered, and it appears that twelve rows of arehes haVe run from side to side, and four from one end to the other; which must have formed a very finn groupe, and was their manner of building, in order to prevent the effects of earthquakes. Part of the pedestal that supported the statue remains in the east end : the grand court is six hundred and sixty by three hundred and ninety feet, and hath included other buildings besides the temple, but of what kind Τ will not presume to say. One part, on the north of the square, I take .to have been a circus ; great numbers of broken fusts are scattered about, some being three feet and a half in diameter, so that they must have been very high : they lie near the temple, among some foundations which probably belonged to the palace, as one person was both king and highpriest. The city has been large, about half a mile from the sea ; bnt I cannot perceive that they had any safe or convenient harbour, as there is no great depth of water near the place. I need not observe, that the temple, being one of the three sanctuaries, maintained the priests in affluence, and drew many people within its confines; or, that this city, in the time of Evagoras, was reckoned the capital of the island. For the same reason I gave yon at Nicosia, I say nothing of Famagosta, but that I took up my quarters under a tree in a garden ; a kind of lodging I always prefer to an house, though they would have opened the gates for me at any time. * Sancta Nappa is much admired by the people of the country, though for what 1 do not know: the convent is rendered agreeable within, by a fonntain of water, round which the people can sit and solace themselves under a large cupola; bnt there is nothing beautiful in or abont the place. Here I found a Latin inscription on a marble stone : by which it plainly arppears to have been a Roman convent : and I found a place called tho Latin chapel, under the same roof with the Greek chureh, part of which is dug ont of a rock.

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