Few sites in the Mediterranean have the magic of Salamis. On a strip of golden coastline, among dunes, eucalyptus trees and the murmur of the sea, lie the ruins of what was for centuries the largest and most important city in Cyprus. Walking among its columns (the gymnasium with its courtyard lined with statues, the Roman baths, the great theatre that held fifteen thousand spectators) with the blue Mediterranean as a backdrop is one of the most memorable experiences on the whole island.
Salamis was already the capital of Cyprus around 1100 BC, and legend says it was founded by Teucer, a hero of the Trojan War. It survived Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and Romans; it saw kings such as Evagoras I turn it into a beacon of Greek culture, and Roman emperors raise colossal monuments there. St Paul and St Barnabas preached Christianity here. Earthquakes and the Arab raids of the 7th century gradually emptied it, until neighbouring Famagusta took over its role and Salamis was buried by sand, waiting for the archaeologists.
This guide takes a practical, friendly look at Salamis, along with the particular things you need to know about visiting Northern Cyprus: how to cross the Green Line from the south and the insurance you need for the car, what to see at the site (the gymnasium, the baths, the theatre, the agora and the basilicas), how to combine the visit with Famagusta and the Monastery of St Barnabas, and how to make the most of the weather. Salamis isn't a museum with display cases: it's an ancient city open to the sea and the sky, to explore slowly and be amazed by.
Salamis was the great city of Cypriot antiquity: capital of the island from around 1100 BC, founded according to legend by the archer Teucer after the Trojan War. One of the ten city-kingdoms of Cyprus, it reached its cultural peak under King Evagoras I (5th-4th centuries BC). The scene of battles between Greeks and Persians and between Alexander's successors, it flourished under Rome, which filled it with gymnasiums, baths and theatres. The earthquakes of the 4th century ruined it, and it was rebuilt as Constantia by Emperor Constantius II. St Paul and St Barnabas (a native of Cyprus) preached Christianity here. The Arab raids of the 7th century depopulated it and the sand covered it, while neighbouring Famagusta took over its role. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The touristy east with its golden beaches, and the Turkish Cypriot north beyond the Green Line. Here you'll find ancient Salamis, Gothic Famagusta and its ghost quarter of Varosha, and the harbour of Kyrenia beneath its medieval castle.
Read the history of The east and the north (Ayia Napa, Kyrenia, Famagusta) →They depart from Protaras, 24 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The story of Salamis begins, like that of so many cities in the Greek world, with a heroic legend. According to myth, the city was founded by Teucer, son of Telamon, king of the Greek island of Salamis (opposite Athens), on his return from the Trojan War. Teucer, the finest archer in the Greek army, could not go back to his homeland, because his father banished him for failing to protect his brother Ajax. So he founded a new Salamis in Cyprus, one that recalled his own. The name of the Cypriot city therefore links it directly to the Homeric epic.
Beyond the myth, archaeology confirms there was a settlement here from the 11th century BC (the end of the Bronze Age). It was the heir of the nearby Mycenaean city of Enkomi, which had been abandoned. Salamis grew up beside the best natural harbour on the east coast of Cyprus, at the mouth of the Pedieos river, and that made it a thriving trading centre. The island was rich in copper (the metal that gave Cyprus its name) and stood at a crossroads between the Aegean world and the Near East. Together, these made Salamis a prosperous city from very early on.
The spectacular Royal Tombs date from those first centuries. They form a necropolis from the 8th-7th centuries BC where the city's kings were buried. Rich grave goods were found in them and, above all, something astonishing: the remains of chariots with their horses, sacrificed and buried alongside their owners. These ceremonies are strikingly similar to the heroic funerals Homer describes in the Iliad. It was as if the kings of Salamis wanted to be buried just like the heroes of Troy.
Salamis was one of the ten city-kingdoms that made up ancient Cyprus, and over time it became the most important of them all, the island's de facto capital. Its greatest period came under King Evagoras I (who reigned from 411 to 374 BC), one of the great figures of Cypriot history. Evagoras made Salamis a beacon of Greek culture in a Cyprus that swung between Greek and Persian influence.
Evagoras promoted the Greek language, art and customs. He kept close ties with Athens, which honoured him, and he even dreamed of uniting the whole island under his rule and freeing it from Persian control. For years he defied the Persian Empire in a long war, backed by Athens and Egypt. In the end he was subdued, though he kept his throne. He remained a symbol of Cypriot Hellenism, and the Athenian orator Isocrates dedicated a famous speech of praise to him.
In the centuries that followed, Cyprus was caught up in the struggles of the great powers. After Alexander the Great's conquest, his successors fought over the island. In 306 BC a great naval battle was fought off Salamis between Demetrius Poliorcetes and Ptolemy I of Egypt. Demetrius won it, but in the end it was the Ptolemies who took control of Cyprus. Under their rule the administrative capital moved to Paphos, yet Salamis remained a rich and populous city.
When Rome annexed Cyprus in 58 BC, Salamis was still the largest and most populous city on the island, and under the Empire it enjoyed a new golden age of grand buildings. The Roman emperors embellished the city with the great buildings whose ruins we admire today, especially Trajan and Hadrian in the early 2nd century AD. They include the gymnasium with its colonnaded courtyard and statues, the luxurious baths heated by hypocaust, and the great theatre. The theatre held around 15,000 spectators and was the largest in Cyprus. There were also an amphitheatre, a stadium, the agora and temples.
These works speak of a rich, cosmopolitan city devoted to public life in the Roman style. The gymnasium and the baths were the heart of social life, the theatre of leisure, and the agora of trade and politics. Salamis was a true Mediterranean metropolis, connected by sea to the whole Empire.
But the city lay in an area of strong seismic activity, and earthquakes shaped its fate. A violent earthquake had already badly damaged it in 76 AD, which led to the great rebuilding under Trajan and Hadrian. Centuries later, a devastating series of earthquakes in the early 4th century AD (around 332 and 342) almost completely destroyed Salamis. The city had to be reborn once again, and it did so under a new name.
After the 4th-century earthquakes destroyed it, the city was rebuilt by Emperor Constantius II (who reigned from 337 to 361) and renamed Constantia in his honour. Constantia became the capital of Cyprus and the seat of the archbishop, the heart of the Cypriot Church. The pagan Salamis of Zeus gave way to a Christian city of basilicas.
The Christian history of Salamis, however, went back much further. According to the Acts of the Apostles, this is where the apostles Paul and Barnabas came ashore and began preaching on their first missionary journey, around 45-46 AD. Barnabas was a native of Salamis and is regarded as the founder of the Church of Cyprus. According to tradition, he was martyred in his home city. In the 5th century his tomb was discovered near here, with a copy of the Gospel of St Matthew on his chest. The find helped the Cypriot Church win its independence (autocephaly) from Constantinople. The Monastery of St Barnabas was built on the site, and visitors can still see it today.
Great basilicas survive from Christian Constantia. One is the church of St Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in the 4th century, which served as the city's cathedral. Another is the enormous Campanopetra basilica beside the sea. It was a time of religious splendour, but also the city's last chapter: the end would soon come.
The end of Salamis came in the 7th century. From 647-648 onwards, the Arab raids that swept the eastern Mediterranean struck Cyprus again and again, hitting its coastal cities especially hard. Salamis-Constantia was sacked and razed. The constant danger, together with the gradual silting of its harbour by the river, drove the population away. Over the following centuries the inhabitants moved to nearby Arsinoe, which would grow into Famagusta, the new great city of the east coast.
Once abandoned, Salamis was slowly buried by sand blown in by the wind and the sea. Its fallen columns, theatres and baths disappeared under the dunes. For more than a thousand years the great ancient metropolis slept, forgotten, beneath eucalyptus and scrub beside the beach. Some of its stones were reused to build Famagusta.
Rediscovery came with modern archaeology. Excavations began in the 19th century and continued mainly in the mid-20th century, uncovering the gymnasium, the baths, the agora and the basilicas. The theatre, for example, was not discovered until 1959. Excavations stopped when the island was divided in 1974 and Salamis ended up in the Turkish Cypriot north. Today the site is one of the most impressive in the Mediterranean, and visitors reach it by crossing the Green Line from the south. It is an ancient city open to the sea, where three thousand years of history, from Teucer to the Byzantine bishops, rest among columns, sand and waves.
