Cyprus, An Unconventional Vignette

Although Cyprus is a popular tourist destination, it is not your typical pleasure island.  Its claim to fame is not limited to sandy beaches and golden visas for rich investors.  Four important features have attracted my attention: Cyprus is the birth place of Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of love; within an 800 year-period the island was twice colonized by English rulers; it is the only European country divided and illegally occupied by a NATO Member state; and Cypriots have befriended cats longer than any other people, beginning some 9,500 years ago. 

                                                                      9,500 years cat skeleton


Aphrodite, also known as Venus, whose Latin name symbolizes love, sex, beauty and fertility as well as prostitution.  Legend has it that she was born in the picturesque southern coast of Cyprus near Pathos.  A couple of large rocks called Petra Tou Roumiou mark the location.  People seeking eternal youth, beauty, fertility, love and good luck are invited to swim three times around these rocks.  After surveying the area, I advise poor swimmers to instead visit the local spas, probably named after the goddess; it is risk-free and the results are just as illusory.  Aphrodite’s birth is wacky even by Greek mythology standards:  she was born from the white foam produced by the floating genitals of God Uranus.  He had been castrated by his mischievous son Cronus; this bloody emasculation resulted in the separation of Heaven from Earth.

                                                                               Paphos Mozaic

Sex trade may have been invented in Cyprus during the ancient Greek period.  At the time, it was known as sacred prostitution, and took place within the Temples of Aphrodite in Pathos and Kouklia.  According to the Greek historian Herodotus (born c 484 BC), custom obliged the local unmarried women to offer themselves to strangers for a fee.  This sacred prostitution ended with the puritanical Roman occupation; moreover, recurring earthquakes leveled the temples.  In today’s Cyprus, the cult of Aphrodite is more akin to sex trafficking, as brothels employ mostly foreign sex workers.  Even so, Aphrodite’s prestige as a sea-born goddess remains unbroken.  A promising offshore gas field, located tens of kilometers south of her alleged birthplace, bears her name. 

                                                                           Aphrodite's birth place

During Cyprus’ modern history, it was twice seized by English kings.  In 1191, on his way to the Holy Land, Richard the Lionheart conquered the whole island at breathtaking speed.  He was not ensnared by Aphrodite but insulted by the unchivalrous local despot Isaac Komnenos who had denied assistance to Richard’s shipwrecked sister and fiancé.  Defeated Komnenoe was taken prisoner and sent off to present day Turkey.  Richard married his fiancé Berengaria in Limassol, and then sold the island to the Knights Templar.  Ten years later it was acquired by French knight Guy de Lusignan, the former king of Jerusalem.  His dynasty ruled the island for three hundred years until 1489.  Richard made a fair bit of money out of the sale of Cyprus; for him, fiefs were no more than pieces of real estate, income which allowed him to fulfill his crusading hobby.

The second occupation of Cyprus lasted much longer and was far more troubled.  Under various guises, Britain ran the island from 1878 to its independence in 1960.  This period is so convoluted, complex and unhappy that I will not go into it.  To make a long story short, the Greek Cypriots, who were roughly 75% of the island population, were dead set on enosis, the reunification with continental Greece.  The British colonial power was against it, so was the Turkish government, de facto guarantor of the rights of the Turkish Cypriot minority.  After Independence, the situation got more unstable and violent.  The two communities were unable or unwilling to reach a political consensus for effective power sharing, and sectarian fighting flared up.  The United Nations came to help but was powerless.  Finally, in 1974 after Greece instigated a coup d’état, the Turkish army invaded the northern third of the island.  Populations were forcibly displaced, Turkish Cypriots moved to the north, and Greek Cypriots to the south.

Unfortunately, it is Cyprus’ third claim to fame.  Cyprus is the only European Union member state with part of its territory occupied, and for good measure by a NATO member! Greece, Britain and Turkey are the three historic guarantors of Cyprus statehood, and are all NATO members.  Turkey’s invasion bore some legitimacy but not its subsequent 45 year-occupation.  The isolated and poorer Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is a Turkish puppet state which is not internationally recognized.  To strengthen his hold on the territory, the Ankara government has resorted to an intense “Turkification” by “importing” 30,000 settlers from Anatolia.

The two bits of the island are separated by a buffer zone, the so-called United Nations Green Line, a large no man’s land.   Only cats seem to roam freely in between the two parts.  There are only nine crossings; in Nicosia we crossed on foot to visit the Turkish side of the city.  The partition is a sore point and emotional matter for the Greek Cypriots who tend to overlook their own responsibility in this regrettable situation.  The subject always pops up when talking to them, very much like with Palestinians and Armenians, other people who feel wronged by history.  Aphrodite, well in her gas field incarnation, is also making matters worse between the parties.  Turkey wants to claim its share of the gas bounty, but the Cyprus government is not in a compromise mood.  The Greek Cypriots romanticize the good all times when the island was whole.  However, since the demise of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI, the two communities never got along.  It is hard to expect any improvement now since they are “Embedded so deeply in the medieval compost of religious hatred”[1].

The on-going standoff between the two parts means that the status quo is probably the pragmatic solution. 

Last, in Cyprus, cats outnumber humans by a large margin.  In 2017, its population reached 1.5 million, and cats breed out of control.  In comparison, the island’s human population is currently estimated at only 1.2 million.  Cypriots like to believe that these felines are the descendants of two boat loads of Egyptian cats that Saint Helen of Constantinople, the mother of Emperor Constantin, sent in the 4^th century A.D. to a monastery to get rid of a snake infestation.  On the other hand, archaeologists have discovered a 9,500 years old grave of a man and a cat (picture) showing a close human/feline relationship which pre-dates Egyptian evidence: the world’s oldest cat domestication took place in Cyprus.

Stray cats wander everywhere, no place is off limit to them.  I have spotted well-fed cats in the Hala Sultan Tekke mosque, in churches, monasteries, chic restaurants and crossing the Green line.  

In closing, I wish to give would-be visitors a piece of advice: talk cats, praise Aphrodite, but avoid politics. 

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[1] Durrell, Lawrence.  Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (London, 1957)