DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0186
164
New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. VI.
nician usurper, named Abdemon. Of immemorial right
that throne belonged to the family of Teucer, who had
founded the city and named it after the island whence he
sailed for Troy. Suddenly a member of that ancient
family, by name Evagoras, appeared in Salamis with fifty
followers, who 'reverenced him as a god,' and followed
him implicitly in an enterprise to which a prosperous
termination seemed impossible. But the extraordinary
personal ascendency of the leader and the faith of the
followers accomplished the seeming impossibility. The
palace was stormed, the foreign guards slain, and the
citizens, who, as Isocrates, who tells the story, says, stood
trembling and undecided by, were informed that their
ancient line of kings and their legitimate supremacy in the
island were restored. Evagoras, prudent as he was valiant,
long sought to avoid the inevitable breach with Abdemon's
master, the great King of Persia, and even for a time
succeeded in maintaining an alliance with him and the
Athenian Conon against the Lacedaemonians, whom Conon
defeated in a great battle at Cnidus. But the object of
Evagoras' life, the complete Hellenisation of Cyprus, was
an end the attainment of which Artaxerxes of Persia could
not allow so long as he had a soldier or a ship left. On
the representation of the Phoenician cities of Amathus and
Citium, supported, more Graeco, by the Hellenic rival of
Salamis, Soli, Artaxerxes sent an army to put him down.
Evagoras had long foreseen what turn events must take,,
and had strengthened his position by making great
military preparations and by securing the alliance of the
Athenians, and Acoris, the native aspirant to the throne
of Egypt. Now he drew the sword and flung away the
sheath. Aided by the Athenians under Chabrias, he made
himself master, in a rapid campaign, of nearly all Cyprus,
sailed across to Phoenicia, took by storm the mighty city
of Tyre, which so long defied Alexander the Great seventy
New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. VI.
nician usurper, named Abdemon. Of immemorial right
that throne belonged to the family of Teucer, who had
founded the city and named it after the island whence he
sailed for Troy. Suddenly a member of that ancient
family, by name Evagoras, appeared in Salamis with fifty
followers, who 'reverenced him as a god,' and followed
him implicitly in an enterprise to which a prosperous
termination seemed impossible. But the extraordinary
personal ascendency of the leader and the faith of the
followers accomplished the seeming impossibility. The
palace was stormed, the foreign guards slain, and the
citizens, who, as Isocrates, who tells the story, says, stood
trembling and undecided by, were informed that their
ancient line of kings and their legitimate supremacy in the
island were restored. Evagoras, prudent as he was valiant,
long sought to avoid the inevitable breach with Abdemon's
master, the great King of Persia, and even for a time
succeeded in maintaining an alliance with him and the
Athenian Conon against the Lacedaemonians, whom Conon
defeated in a great battle at Cnidus. But the object of
Evagoras' life, the complete Hellenisation of Cyprus, was
an end the attainment of which Artaxerxes of Persia could
not allow so long as he had a soldier or a ship left. On
the representation of the Phoenician cities of Amathus and
Citium, supported, more Graeco, by the Hellenic rival of
Salamis, Soli, Artaxerxes sent an army to put him down.
Evagoras had long foreseen what turn events must take,,
and had strengthened his position by making great
military preparations and by securing the alliance of the
Athenians, and Acoris, the native aspirant to the throne
of Egypt. Now he drew the sword and flung away the
sheath. Aided by the Athenians under Chabrias, he made
himself master, in a rapid campaign, of nearly all Cyprus,
sailed across to Phoenicia, took by storm the mighty city
of Tyre, which so long defied Alexander the Great seventy