Now we know nothing of the Pelopids before the _Troica_ as conquerors: and especially, it would be difficult to apply the supposition that they were such in relation to a place so distant. Therefore the political connection, whatever it may have been, could probably rest upon an ethnical affinity alone; and, as we know nothing of any Hellic element in this quarter, that affinity seems to presume the Pelasgian character of the population. The inference, which may thus be drawn, coincides with that already suggested by the name of Iasus. We may however justly be curious to learn what conditions they were which gave to Cinyres, and so far as we know to Cinyres alone, among princes, this very peculiar attitude at a critical juncture. It is obvious, that in proportion as his situation was remote from the Greek rendezvous, and from the scene of action, the service became more burdensome: but on the other hand, in proportion as he was distant from the centre of Achæan power, he was little likely to be coerced. How comes it then that Agamemnon had over Cinyres an influence which he does not seem to have possessed over the tribes of Macedonia and Thrace, though these lay nearer both to him, and to the way between him and the Troad, which he had to traverse by sea? The hypothesis, that the population of Cyprus was purely or generally Pelasgian, appears to square remarkably with the facts. For then, upon the one hand, they would naturally be disinclined to interfere on behalf of the Greeks in a war where all purely Pelasgian sympathies would (as we must for the present take for granted) incline them towards Troy. But further, we find among other notes of the Pelasgians this, that they were characterised by a want of nautical genius, while the more enterprising character of the Hellenes at once made them, and has kept them down to this very day, an eminently maritime people; and Homer himself, with his whole soul, evidently gloried and delighted in the sea. If then the population of Cyprus was Pelasgian, we can readily understand how, notwithstanding its sympathies and its remoteness, it might be worth the while of its ruler to propitiate Agamemnon by a valuable gift in order to avert a visit which his ships might otherwise be expected to pay; and how the Pelopid power over Cyprus, as an island, might be greater than over nearer tribes, which were continental. It may aid us to comprehend the relation between Cyprus and Agamemnon, if we call to recollection the insular empire which Athens afterwards acquired.