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KOURION (Ancient city) CYPRUS
Curium (Kourion, Ptol. v. 14. § 2; Steph. B.; Hierocl.; Curias, Plin.
v. 13: Eth. Kourieus: Piscopia), a city of Cyprus, situated to the W. of the river
Lycus, 16 M. P. from Amathus. (Peut. Tab.) It was said to have been founded by
the Argives. (Herod. v. 113; Strab. xiv. p. 683.) Stesenor, its sovereign, betrayed
the cause of his country during the war against the Persians. (Herod. l. c.) Near
the town was a Cape (Phrourion, Ptol. v. 14. § 2: Capo Bianco), from which sacrilegious
offenders who had dared to touch the altar of Apollo were thrown into the sea.
(Strab. l. c.) The ruins of a town supposed to represent this have been found,
near Piscopia, one of the most fertile spots in the island. (Pococke, Trav. vol.
ii. p. 329; Engel, Kypros, vol. i. p. 118.)
Kourion. A city of Cyprus, on the southern coast, or rather, according to the ancients, at the commencement of the western shore, at a small distance from which, to the southeast, there is a cape which bears the name of Curias. Curium is said to have been founded by an Argive colony, and it was one of the nine royal cities of Cyprus.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Total results on 11/5/2001: 21 for Kourion, 17 for Curium.
On the SW coast, about 16 km W of Limassol. The ruins cover a large
area on a bluff overlooking the sea to the S. Kourion was surrounded by a city
wall but of this very little survives; the rocky scarp on the E and S sides has
been vertically cut. There was probably no proper harbor but the remains of a
jetty, about 80 m long, are still visible at low tide to the W of the town and
Strabo mentions the existence of an anchorage. The necropolis extends E and S.
One of the ancient kingdoms of Cyprus, Kourion was founded by the
Argives (Hdt. 5.113; Strab. 14.683). The connection between Kourion and Argos
is further illustrated by the worship at Kourion of a god called Perseutas. Excavations
have yielded evidence of an Achaian settlement in the 14th c. B.C. at the Bamboula
ridge at the nearby village of Episkopi. A tomb within the necropolis of Kourion
yielded material of the 11th c. B.C. including the well-known royal gold and enamel
scepter which is now in the Cyprus Museum. The name of Kir appears in an Egyptian
inscription at Medinet Habu of the time of Rameses III (1198-1167 B.C.), if the
correlation with Kourion were beyond dispute. The name is also mentioned on the
prism of Esarhaddon (673-672 B.C.), where the reading Damasu king of Kuri has
been interpreted as Damasos king of Kounon.
During the revolt of Onesilos against the Persians at the time of
the Ionian Revolt King Stasanor of Kourion, commanding a large force, fought at
first on the Greek side but at the battle in the plain of Salamis (498 B.C.) he
went over to the Persians and his betrayal won them the day. Nothing is known
of the other kings of Kourion until Pasikrates, probably its last king, who sailed
in the Cypriot fleet, which went to the aid of Alexander the Great at the siege
of Tyre in 332 B.C.
The city flourished in Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman times. It was
badly hit by the severe earthquakes of A.D. 332 and 342, which also hit Salamis
and Paphos, but it was soon rebuilt. Before this time Christianity was well established
at Kourion and one of its bishops, Philoneides, had suffered martyrdom under Diocletian
(A.D. 284-305). Zeno, a later bishop, was instrumental in securing at the Council
of Ephesos (A.D. 431) a favorable decision on the claims of the church of Cyprus
to independence. As a bishopric the city flourished once more until it was gradually
abandoned after the first Arab raids of A.D. 647.
Kourion was the birthplace of the poet Kleon, who wrote Argonautica,
from which Apollonios Rhodios, in his epic of the same theme, was accused of copying;
it was also the birthplace of Hermeias, a lyric poet.
The principal monuments uncovered to date include the House of Achilles,
the House of the Gladiators and the House of Eustolios, all paved with mosaics
of the 4th and 5th c. A.D., a theater, an Early Christian basilican church, and,
near the city, the stadium and the Temple of Apollo Hylates.
The existence at Kourion of a gymnasium is attested by inscriptions
but its location is not known at present. The worship of Hera, Dionysos, Aphrodite,
and the hero Perseutas has also been attested by epigraphical evidence but again
nothing is known of the site of the sanctuaries. The Sanctuary of Demeter and
Kore, also attested by inscriptions, has been located on the E side of the Stadium.
The remains of the House of Achilles lie on the N part of the city
close to the main Limassol-Paphos road. The house consists of an open courtyard
with rooms on either side and a colonnaded portico on the N. In the portico, whose
floor is paved with mosaics, a large panel depicts in lively manner Achilles disguised
as a maiden at the court of King Lykomedes of the island of Skyros unwittingly
revealing his identity to Odysseus on the sounding of a false alarm. In another
room a panel shows Ganymede being carried by the Eagle to Mt. Olympos.
The House of the Gladiators, farther S, consists of a complex of rooms
and corridors with an inner court, probably an atrium. Some of its rooms were
paved with mosaics, including figure representations. In one of these rooms are
two panels depicting gladiatorial scenes. The first panel shows two gladiators
fully armed with helmets, shields, and swords facing each other and ready to strike.
Above them are indicated their names or nicknames, MARGAREITES and ELLENIKOS.
The second panel shows again two gladiators facing each other but with an unarmed
figure between them. The left-hand figure is called LUTRAS, the central one DAREIOS;
of the right-hand figure only the initialE survives.
At the SE end of the bluff are the remains of a large house paved
with mosaics, commanding a splendid view over the fields and the sea beyond. It
is known as the House of Eustolios and includes a bathing establishment. In one
of the porticos an inscription gives the name of Eustolios, the builder of the
baths, and refers to Phoebus Apollo as the former patron of Kourion; another inscription
specifically mentions Christ, an interesting commentary on the gradual transition
from paganism to Christianity. The bathing establishment lies on higher ground
to the N. Its central room has its floor paved with mosaics divided into four
panels, one of which depicts Ktisis in a medallion.
To the W of the House of Eustolios lies the theater built on a slope
overlooking the sea to the S. The theater consists of the cavea, a semicircular
orchestra, and the stage-building. A vaulted corridor around the back of the theater
provided access through five gangways to the diazoma. Access was also effected
from the parodoi lower down. The orchestra is paved with lime cement. Of the stage-building
only the foundations survive. The theater as it stands today dates from Graeco-Roman
times, but the original one, smaller and on a Greek model, was built in the 2d
c. B.C. The orchestra at this period was a full circle and the cavea encompassed
an arc of more than 180 degrees. The theater provided accommodation for ca. 3,500
spectators; it has been recently reconstructed up to the diazoma.
The stadium lies to the W of the city on the way to the Temple of
Apollo. The outline of its U-shaped plan is well preserved. Its total length is
233 m and its width 36 m. Its total capacity was ca. 7,000 spectators. The stadium
was built in the 2d c. A.D. during the Antonine period and remained in use until
about A.D. 400.
The Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates, about 3 km W of the city, displays
a large group of buildings. The precinct is entered by two gates, the Kourion
Gate and the Paphos Gate. The remains of the long Doric portico extend the whole
way between the two gates. South of this portico is the S Building consisting
of five rooms entered from the portico and separated from each other by corridors.
Each room had a raised dais on three sides, divided from a central paved area
by Doric columns. The inscription set in the front wall over one of the doors
tells us that two of the rooms were erected by the emperor Trajan in A.D. 101.
A room of similar design is the NW Building, reached by a broad flight of steps.
The function of these rooms is not certain but they may have been used to display
votives or to accommodate visitors.
The main sanctuary lies to the N of the precinct. From the Doric portico
a paved street leads straight to the Temple of Apollo. The temple stands on a
high stylobate reached from the Sacred Way by a flight of steps occupying the
whole width of the temple. It consisted of a portico with four columns and of
two rooms, the pronaos and the opisthodomos. At the E of the precinct lie the
baths. At the SE, by the Kourion Gate, lies the palaestra, which is composed of
a central peristyle rectangular court surrounded by rooms.
The worship of Apollo at this site began as early as the 8th c. B.C.
There are still a few remains of the archaic period but most of the ruins seen
now date from the Graeco-Roman period or ca. A.D. 100, having been restored after
the disastrous earthquakes of A.D. 76-77. These new buildings were themselves
destroyed during the severe earthquakes of A.D. 332 and 342, when the sanctuary
seems to have been definitely abandoned.
Finds are in the site museum at Episkopi village and in the Cyprus
Museum, Nicosia.
K. Nicolaou, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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