Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Cypriot Chronology and Main Centres



Introduction: In Search of the Lost Kypriōn Politeia

 1 Nomina nuda

 2 Basic Concepts

 3 The Development of the Cypriot City-Kingdoms

 4 Historiography

 5 Epigraphic Sources: The Languages of Cyprus



1 Setting the Scene: King, Elite and People

 1 The Persistence of Kingship and Royal Ideology

 2 The Elite and the Wanaktes

 3 Schooling the Elite, Cypriot Education and Political Leadership

 4 A Cypriot Secret Police

 5 Δῆμος and πόλις in the Cypriot City-Kingdoms

 5 ‘I Do Solemnly Swear …’: An Oath of Allegiance as Testimony of Cypriot Royal Supremacy



2 The Idalion Bronze Tablet: Cypriot Political and Administrative Institutions in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC

 1 Establishing the Chronology

 2 The Eponymous Magistrate and the Polis: Institutional Representatives beyond the King

 3 Territories, Land-Registers and Legal Owners in the Cypriot City-States

 4 The Cypriot Land of the King



3 The Administration of the Central Palace

 1 The Rab Soferim, Chief of Scribes, and His Staff in Kition

 2 RB ḤZ‘NM and RB SRSRM, Other Palace Officials?



4 The Role of Carians and Their ‘Interpreter’ in the Kition Administration

 1 The Cypriot Epigraphic Attestations of KRSY and MLṢ (H)KRSYM

 2 The KRSYM in the Mediterranean and Near East

 3 Carians in Cyprus

 4 The MLṢ HKRSYM, Not Only an Interpreter



5 Administrative Officials on the Periphery of the Cypriot City-States: The Bulwer Tablet



6 Religious-Civil Officials between the Centre and Periphery in Cypriot Syllabic Greek and Phoenician Inscriptions

 1 Hunting for Wolves: A Civic-Religious Magistracy in the Central Administration of Paphos

 2 Civic-Religious Governors in the Peripheral Territory of the City-States, the Cases of Paphos and Lapethos



Conclusion: The Kypriōn Politeia Regained

 1 The Consistency of the Cypriot Administrative System

 2 The Development of the Classical Cypriot Political System between Achaemenid and Greek Influences



Appendix

Plates

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Beatrice Pestarino, Ph.D. (2021), University College London, is postdoctoral researcher at The Haifa Center for Mediterranean History (HCMH), University of Haifa and visiting fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS), University of Harvard. She has published articles in peer reviewed journals on the socio-political structure of Classical Cyprus.