On these heights, the feasts in honour of Adonis were held. This beautiful youth, the beloved of Venus, is said to have met his death in the Idalion forest between Larnaka and Famagusta, where, according to heathen mythology, he was killed by a wild boar he had wounded. Anemones are said to have sprung up from the ground that was moistened by his blood. These feasts to Adonis, which were first celebrated at Byblos, in Phœnicia, were afterwards introduced to Greece and Cyprus. In the latter country they lasted eight days, of which the first four were spent in howling and lamenting, and the four last in joyful clamours, as if Adonis had returned to life. The orgies, in connection with these feasts, were immoral in the extreme, and we are told that Pygmalion, the celebrated statuary of Cyprus, was so disgusted by the profligacy of the women of Amathus, that he resolved never to marry. The affection he had denied to the other sex, he, therefore, liberally poured forth upon the creation of his own hands. He became enamoured of a beautiful marble statue he had made, and at his earnest request and prayers, the Goddess of Love changed the favourite statue into a woman, whom the artist married, and by whom he had a son named Paphos, who founded the city of that name in Cyprus. The ascent of Amathus would well repay any one who would attempt it, if only for the magnificent view presented from its summit. On one side lies a broad expanse of blue sea, and on the other a semicircle of dark heights and peaks, whilst between the two extends the gay and luxuriant valley, stretching its fruitful fields and gardens to the shore. “Under the Ptolemies,” says Cesnola, “and in the later history of Cyprus, Amathus appears to have lost the ancient importance which it enjoyed, when ruled by its own kings, and when its natural allies, the Persians, were all-powerful.”