Now that the fate of empires was to be settled by naval battles, the friendship of Cyprus became very important to the neighbouring states. The large and safe harbours gave to this island a great value in the naval warfare between Phœnicia and Asia Minor. Alexander had given it as his opinion that the command of the Mediterranean went with the island of Cyprus, and called it the key to Egypt. Under the Ptolemies Cyprus continued sometimes united to Egypt and sometimes governed by a separate prince of that dynasty. The last of these princes, brother to Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, incurred the enmity of P. Clodius Pulcher, a Roman of illustrious family, who being taken prisoner by Cilician pirates, sent to the King of Cyprus for money to pay his ransom; the king sent an insufficient sum, and Clodius having recovered his liberty obtained a decree, as soon as he became tribune, for making Cyprus a Roman province. Marcus Cato, against whom he had a bitter enmity, was sent to take possession of the new territory, and achieved this difficult undertaking with unexpected success. The king, in despair at the attempt upon his kingdom, committed suicide. Cato at once seized upon the treasury and sent a large booty home. Cyprus thus became a Roman province, and on the division of that empire was allotted to the Byzantines, and long formed one of the brightest jewels of the imperial crown. At length, after many successive changes, it again became a separate principality, under a branch of the house of Comnena, from which it was finally wrested by the adventurous hand of Richard Cœur de Lion, who sold it to the Knights Templars. The new government proved so oppressive that the people were driven to open revolt, and Richard, having resumed the sovereignty, placed the crown, in 1192, upon the head of Guy de Lusignan, ex-king of Jerusalem.