of all Cyprus,” enlarged subsequently into “archbishop of Justiniana Nova and of all Cyprus,” after an enforced expatriation to Justinianopolis in 688. Zeno also gave him the unique privileges of wearing and signing his name in the imperial purple, &c., which are still preserved. A Latin hierarchy was set up in 1196 (an archbishop at Nicosia with suffragans at Limasol, Paphos and Famagusta), and the Greek bishops were made to minister to their flocks in subjection to it. The sees were forcibly reduced to four, the archbishopric was ostensibly abolished, and the bishops were compelled to do homage and swear fealty to the Latin Church. This bondage ceased at the conquest of the island by the Turks: the Latin hierarchy disappeared (the cathedral at Nicosia is now used as a mosque), and the native church emerged into comparative freedom. In 1821, it is true, all the bishops and many of their flock were put to death by way of discouraging sympathies with the Greeks; but successors were soon consecrated, by bishops sent from Antioch at the request of the patriarch of Constantinople, and on the whole the Church has prospered. The bishops-elect required the berat of the sultan; but having received this, they enjoyed no little civil importance. Since 1878 the berat has not been given, and the bishops are less influential. The suppressed sees have never been restored, but the four which survive (now known as Nicosia, Paphos, Kition and Kyrenia) are of metropolitan rank, so that the archbishop, whose headquarters, first at Salamis, then at Famagusta, are now at Nicosia, is a primate amongst metropolitans. There are several monasteries dating from the 11th century and onwards; also an archiepiscopal school at Nicosia, founded in 1812 and raised to the status of a “gymnasion” in 1893; and a high school for girls.
Authorities.—Ph. Georgiou, Εἰδήσεις Ἱστορικαὶ περὶ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας τῆς Κύπρου (Athens, 1875); K. Kouriokurineos (Archbishop of Cyprus), Ἱστορία χρονολογικὴ τῆς νήσου Κύπρου (Venice, 1788); de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous les princes de la maison de Lusignan (Paris, 1852 f.); H. T. F. Duckworth, The Church of Cyprus (London, 1900); J. Hackett, History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus (1901). (W. E. Co.)
CYPSELUS, tyrant of Corinth (c. 657–627 B.C.), was the son of Aeëtion and Labda, daughter of Amphion, a member of the ruling family, the Bacchiadae. He is said to have derived his name from the fact that when the Bacchiadae, warned that he would prove their ruin, sent emissaries to kill him in his cradle,
his mother saved him by concealing him in a chest (Gr. κυψέλη).
The story was, of course, a subsequent invention. When he
was grown up, Cypselus, encouraged by an oracle, drove out the
Bacchiadae, and made himself master of Corinth. It is stated
that he first ingratiated himself with the people by his liberal
conduct when Polemarch, in which capacity he had to exact
the fines imposed by the law. In the words of Aristotle he
made his way through demagogy to tyranny. Herodotus, in
the spirit of 5th-century Greeks, which conventionally regarded
the tyrants as selfish despots, says he ruled harshly, but he is
generally represented as mild, beneficent and so popular as to
be able to dispense with a bodyguard, the usual attribute of a
tyrannis. He pursued an energetic commercial and colonial
policy (see Corinth), and thus laid the foundations of Corinthian prosperity. He may well be compared with the Athenian Peisistratus in these respects. He laid out the large sums thus derived on the construction of buildings and works of art. At the same
time he wisely strove to gain the goodwill of the powerful priesthoods
of the great sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia. At
Delphi he built a treasure-house for Corinthian votive offerings;
at Olympia he dedicated a colossal statue of Zeus and the famous
“chest of Cypselus,” supposed to be identical with the chest of the legend, of which Pausanias (v. 17-19) has given an elaborate description. It was of cedar-wood, gold and ivory, and on it were represented the chief incidents in Greek (especially Corinthian) mythology and legend. Cypselus was succeeded by his son Periander.
See Corinth: History; histories of Greece; Herodotus v. 92; Aristotle, Politics, 1310b, 1315b; P. Knapp, Die Kypseliden und die Kypseloslade (Tübingen, 1888); L. Preller, Ausgewählte Aufsätze (1864); H. Stuart Jones, in Journ. Hell. Stud. (1894), 30 foll.
CYRANO DE BERGERAC, SAVINIEN (1620–1655), French
romance-writer and dramatist, son of Abel de Cyrano, seigneur
de Mauvières et de Bergerac, was born in Paris on the 6th of
March 1619–1620. He received his first education from a
country priest, and had for a fellow pupil his friend and future
biographer, Henri Lebret. He then proceeded to Paris to the
collège de Beauvais, where he had for master Jean Grangier,
whom he afterwards ridiculed in his comedy Le Pédant joué
(1654). At the age of nineteen he entered a corps of the guards,
serving in the campaigns of 1639 and 1640, and began the
series of exploits that were to make of him a veritable hero of
romance. The story of his adventure single-handed against a
hundred enemies is vouched for by Lebret as the simple truth.
After two years of this life Cyrano left the service and returned
to Paris to pursue literature, producing tragedies cast in the
orthodox classical mode. He was, however, as a pupil of Gassendi,
suspected of thinking too freely, and in the Mort d’Agrippine
(1654) his enemies even found blasphemy. The most interesting
section of his work is that which embraces the two romances
L’Histoire comique des états du soleil (1662) and L’Histoire
comique des états de la lune (1656?). Cyrano’s ingenious mixture
of science and romance has furnished a model for many subsequent
writers, among them Swift and E. A. Poe. It is impossible
to determine whether he adopted his fanciful style in the hope
of safely conveying ideas that might be regarded as unorthodox,
or whether he simply found in romance writing a relaxation from
the serious study of physics. Cyrano spent a stormy existence
in Paris and was involved in many duels, and in quarrels with the
comedian Montfleury, with Scarron and others. He entered
the household of the duc d’Arpajon as secretary in 1653. In
the next year he was injured by the fall of a piece of timber,
as he entered his patron’s house. Arpajon, perhaps alarmed
by his reputation as a free-thinker, desired him to leave, and he
found refuge with friends in Paris. During the illness which
followed his accident, he is said to have been reconciled with
the Church, and he died in September 1655.
M. Edmond Rostand’s romantic play of Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) revived interest in the author of the Histoires comiques. A modern edition of his Œuvres (2 vols.), by P. L. Jacob (Paul Lacroix), appeared in 1858, with the preface by H. Lebret originally prefixed to the Histoire comique des états de la lune (1656?). For an interesting analysis of the romances see Garnet Smith in the Cornhill for July 1898. See also P. A. Brun, Savinien de Cyrano Bergerac (1894). Other studies of Cyrano are those of Charles Nodier (1841), F. Merilhon (Périgueux, 1856), Fourgeaud-Lagrèze (in Le Périgord littéraire, 1875) and of Théophile Gautier, in his Grotesques.
CYRENAICA, in ancient geography, a district of the N. African coast, lying between the Syrtis Major and Marmarica, the western limit being Arae Philaenorum, and the eastern a vague line drawn inland from the head of the gulf of Platea (Bomba). On the south the limit was undefined, but understood to be the margin of the desert, some distance north of the oasis of Augila (Aujila). The northern half of this district, which alone was fertile, was known as Pentapolis from its possession of five considerable cities (1) Hesperides-Berenice (Bengazi), (2) Barca (Merj), (3) Cyrene (Ain Shahat-Grenna), (4) Apollonia (Marsa Susa), (5) Teucheira-Arsinoë (Tocra). In later times two more towns rose to importance, Ptolemais (Tolmeita) and Darnis-Zarine (Derna). These all lay on the coast, with the exception of Barca and Cyrene, which were situated on the highland now called Jebel Akhdar, a few miles inland. Cyrene was the first city to arise, being founded among Libyan barbarians by Aristotle of Thera (later called Battus) in the middle of the 7th century B.C. (see Cyrene). For about 500 years this district enjoyed great prosperity, owing partly to its natural products, but more to its trade with interior Africa.
Under the Ptolemies, the inland cities declined in comparison with the maritime ones, and the Cyrenaica began to feel the commercial competition of Egypt and Carthage, whence easier roads lead into the continent. After all N. Africa had passed to Rome, and Cyrenaica itself, bequeathed by Apion, the last Ptolemaic sovereign, was become (in combination with Crete) a Roman province (after 96 B.C.), this competition told more severely than ever, and the Greek colonists, grown weaker, found
