Iron , known already in the second millennium , is harder than bronze , but it rusts . From the 12th. century B.C. on , it was used ever increasingly for weapons and tools which needed to be sharp , and armed conflicts occurred increasingly frequently . The Dorians drove the Achaeans out of their territory so that the latter came to Cyprus as refugees and settlers , initiating the Hellenisation of the island . Towards the end of the 12th. century , the Arcadian dialect had ousted the indigenous language , but the independent Cypro-Minoan script lasted until about the 3rd. century alongside the more practical alphabet employing letters adopted from the Phoenicians which the Greeks had enriched with signs for vowels thus creating the basic form for European scripts . The Achaeans also brought the typically Greek political structure of the city state with them , admittedly not the democracy which later came into being in the mother country . The island thus had the predominant ethnic population it still has , the Greeks . All subsequent alien rules and immigrants did nothing to change this . There continued to be , of course , strong elements from surrounding peoples , for example the Phoenicians founded a colony in Kition (later Larnaca) in the 8th. century . It was one of the seven to ten small kingdoms which were to shape Cyprus halfway through the millennium . Little is known about their social structure .

On the surrounding continents , the various empires came and went . Assyrians , Egyptians and Persians had little trouble with the Mediterranean island which was so important for trade and warfare . For many centuries , it had to accept vassal status with only brief periods of independence . The events of this time are only recorded in outlines , any dates are followed by many question-marks . In the 7th. century , Cyprus came under Assyrian sovereignty for about 40 years , however the minor kings apparently did not have to completely give up their autonomy . In the mid-sixth century it was briefly annexed by the Egypt of the Pharaohs which was experiencing its last climax . The age-old kingdom rose to be a sea power in the eastern Mediterranean and cultivated good relations with the Greek colonies in its vicinity . Admittedly , alliances against the Persians failed . In 525 B.C. Egypt became a Persian province , a fate which had befallen Cyprus 20 years earlier . The inhabitants of the island rebelled against the foreign lords several times , but at times they also fought with them . At the beginning of the 5th. century , Onesilos of Salamis risked a coup d' etat against his brother and joined the revolt by the Ionian cities . The revenge of the superior Persians was not long in coming . Ten , twenty years later , the Greek city states recently allied against Persia devastated Cyprus , more or less while sailing by , and then took course for Byzantium . The Cypriot fought on the Persian side against them . In the middle of the century , they joined the Athenians who , under Pericles , were conducting an initially successful offensive against the Persians and Spartans simultaneously , but in the end they lost . In the Peace of Callias , the hotly contested island was once again annexed by the Persians . Only Alexander , who destroyed the Persian Empire of Xerxes , liberated it - once again for just a short time . After Alexander's death in 323 B.C. his empire disintegrated , decades of struggles followed over his inheritance . It was the age of the Diadochi and it was the age of Pyrrhus . In his name , these battles have become a proverbial symbol : victories followed by downfall in the next moment , because the price for the victory had been too high . Cyprus with its important resources , timber and copper above all , was drawn into bloody disputes between Antigonos (Asia Minor) and Ptolemy (Egypt) . In 925 B.C. it fell once again to Egypt , and Ptolemy took his vengeance on those who had sided with Antigonos . The minor kingdoms had to make way for a central administration , only the cities were granted a certain autonomy . In the Ptolemaic epoch occurred one of Cyprus's most significant contributions to European intellectual history . Zeno of Citium established the Stoic school in Athens , a philosophy which it is impossible to imagine life of the late antique period being without .

From the mid - second century B.C. on , Rome did not miss an opportunity to exploit the disputes between Syria and Egypt and those which broke out among the Ptolemies themselves to her advantage . In the epoch of the Roman civil wars , Cyprus fell to the expanding empire which was being transformed , step by step , from a republic into a monarchy . In 58 B.C. Marcus Portius Cato conquered the island . He was an upright republican and with this move he was removed for the moment from the political stage in Rome . He administered Cyprus studiously correctly for two years . In 51/50 B.C. Cicero was governor of the island . In his case too , his proper conduct of official business was in stark contrast to the ruthlessness of the businessmen and officials . They granted 'loans' at horrendous rates of interest . In 47 and 36 B.C. Caesar and Anthony gave the island as a present to Cleopatra with whom they had had affairs . In 31 B.C. Octavian conquered it back . In 29 B.C. Cicero's son , Marcus by first name , was appointed governor . With the division of the Roman provinces into imperial and 'public' provinces , it came to Syria which was directly subordinate to 'Augustus' (the title the Senate had conferred on Octavian) because troops had to be deployed for its protection . In 22 B.C. Cyprus became senatorial province , a sign that the situation had stabilised . It was administered by an annually changing proconsul .

After an initial phase of the most brutal exploitation , Roman rule brought the island an effective infrastructure and , as an unintended side-effect , the Christianity which , for the Greek-speaking Cypriots , became the most important feature of their identity alongside their language . Cyprus lay on the route of the first missionary journey of the apostles Paul and Barnabas . In 45 A.D. they crossed the island from Salamis to Paphos . Barnabas , a Cypriot Jew by descent , returned in 51 , continued preaching the gospel and died a martyr's death .

Greek remained the vernacular on the island , as elsewhere in the East of the Roman Empire (the official and administrative language , however , was Latin) , Cyprus was divided into four districts and 12 or 13 smaller administrative units , each allotted to a city . With two exceptions , all administrative centres lay on the coast . Roads , aqueducts , public baths , theatres and other public institutions ensured a comfortable life which was , admittedly , seriously disrupted by frequent earthquakes . In 15 B.C. Paphos , the capital , was destroyed . In 76 A.D. Paphos and Salamis . Particularly bad was an earthquake in 164 A.D. during which almost all cities on the island were severely damaged . The political peace was seldom disturbed . Only in 116 A.D. did the Jews , many of whom had fled to Cyprus after the fall of Jerusalem , rise against Roman rule . As there were hardly any troops stationed here , they were able to cause a blood-bath among the inhabitants , whereas in other parts of the country they were quickly brought under control . All in all , according to the - quite certainly exaggerated - report of an ancient historian , 240,000 persons are said to have been killed on Cyprus , including all non-Jewish inhabitants of Salamis . The revolt led to brutal suppression and the expulsion of all Jews from the island under Emperor Trajan .