According to legend, Salamis was founded around 1180 BC by Teucer (Teukros), son of Telamon, King of Salamina, on the Greek mainland. Brother to the hero Ajax, he was unable to return home from the Trojan War after failing to avenge his brother’s death.
Today the vast, scattered remnants of this ancient kingdom, 9km north of Famagusta on the seaward side of the Famagusta–Boğaz highway, are one of the island’s premier archaeological sites.
After its legendary beginnings, Salamis later came under Assyrian rule; the first recorded mention of it is on an Assyrian stele dated to 709 BC.
After a land and sea battle between the Greeks and the Persians in 450 BC the city (and island) submitted. The city remained under Persian control until the great patriot king Evagoras fought for and obtained independence. During his reign Salamis flourished. It issued its own money and nurtured a thriving philosophical and literary scene, receiving noted Greek thinkers and poets.
Later, after Alexander the Great put an end to Persian domination across the island, the city saw a short period of peace. Nicocreon (the last king of Salamis) submitted to Alexander’s rule and after Alexander’s death, continued to cooperate with the subsequent Ptolemaic rulers; quelling uprisings in other Cypriot kingdoms. Nicocreon’s death in 311 BC remains a mystery. Some texts says that he committed suicide while others hold that he was murdered. What is clear is that despite Ptolemy rule over Salamis lasting until 58 BC, the city began to flounder after Nicocreon’s death.
It wasn’t until Cyprus became a Roman colony that the city prospered again, through rebuilding and public works. It went on to suffer two earthquakes and a tidal wave, requiring rebuilding once more, courtesy of Emperor Constantine II. In AD 350 the city was renamed Constantia and declared Episcopal.
Constantia suffered similar problems to its predecessor and in the 7th and 8th centuries it suffered Saracen Arab raids.
Its silted-over harbour became unusable and the city was essentially forgotten. Many of its stones were later used to build Famagusta.
