Abstract: At the end of the eighth century, Cyprus came under Assyrian control. For the following four centuries, the Cypriot monarchs were confronted with the power of the Near Eastern empires. This essay focuses on the relations between the Cypriot kings and the Near Eastern Great Kings from the eighth to the fourth century BC. To understand these relations, two theoretical concepts are applied: the centre-periphery model and the concept of suzerainty. From the central perspective of the Assyrian and Persian empires, Cyprus was situated on the western periphery. Therefore, the local governing traditions were respected by the Assyrian and Persian masters, as long as the petty kings fulfilled their duties by paying tributes and providing military support when requested to do so. The personal relationship between the Cypriot kings and their masters can best be described as one of suzerainty, where the rulers submitted to a superior ruler, but still retained some autonomy. This relationship was far from being stable, which could lead to manifold misunderstandings between centre and periphery. In this essay, the ways in which suzerainty worked are discussed using several examples of the relations between Cypriot kings and their masters.

Key words: Assyria, Persia, Cyprus, Cypriot kings.

At the end of the fourth century BC, all the Cypriot kingdoms vanished during the wars of Alexander's successors Ptolemy and Antigonus, who struggled for control of the island. Pumayyaton, king of Kition, was executed, and Praxippus of Lapithus and Stasioecus of Marion were arrested by Ptolemy. On Ptolemy's orders, the city of Marion on the northern coast of the island was completely wiped out and the population resettled at Paphos. The royal family of Paphos came to a dramatic end: Ptolemy ordered Nicocles of Paphos to commit suicide because he had secretly negotiated with Antigonus; when Nicocles was dead, his wife Axiothea killed herself and their daughters. The king's brothers and their wives followed them to their deaths, burning down the palace. By 306 BC, all Cypriot kingdoms had ceased to exist.

Before the successors’ wars, Cyprus had been divided into small kingdoms for several centuries, their number varying between seven and twelve.