Abstract: In the first part of the contribution current interpretations of Cypriot kingship are critically discussed. In the second part, as far as epigraphical and literary evidence allows, some features of Cypriot royal rule, especially those regarding the kings’ power, are expounded with more or less certainty, and without trying to give a complete picture of Cypriot kingship.

Key words: Cyprus, Cypriot kingship.

This article and that of Christian Körner in the same volume of Electrum go back to papers delivered at the conference “Kleinkönige und starke Verwalter: Macht und Bedeutung lokaler und regionaler Herrschaft im östlichen Mittelmeer und dem Vorderen Orient von der assyrischen bis sasanidischen Zeit,” which was organised by Stefan Hauser and Henning Börm and held in Konstanz on 30 September and 1 October, 2013. Both articles refer to each other. Christian Körner has written a book dealing exhaustively with the Cypriot city kingdoms and Cypriot kingship which will appear in this year, while I have written several articles on Hellenistic Cyprus reverting more or less to the period of the city kings, and a few articles on the Cypriot city kingdoms and the transition from Cyprus of the city kingdoms to Ptolemaic Cyprus. For my present topic, I refer explicitly to my own publications and my articles in press.1 Since in Körner's future book both the historical Cypriot kingdoms and Cypriot city kingship form the central topic, I deliver – in close cooperation with Körner, whom I thank for much advice – only a sketch of what may have been Cypriot city kingship.

I must start by giving two hints important for understanding the topic of this paper: in the period of the ancient Cypriot city kingdoms, as far as we have written evidence at our disposal, the island was under foreign suzerainty, i.e. indirect rule, for a long time that of the Middle Eastern empires of the Assyrians and Persians respectively their kings, and for a short time that of Alexander the Great and some of his first successors.