(M28) The legendary history of the royal and priestly family of the Cinyrads is instructive. We are told that a Syrian man, by name Sandacus, migrated to Cilicia, married Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, and founded the city of Celenderis. His wife bore him a son, Cinyras, who in time crossed the sea with a company of people to Cyprus, wedded Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of the island, and founded Paphos.(128) These legends seem to contain reminiscences of kingdoms in Cilicia and Cyprus which passed in the female line, and were held by men, sometimes foreigners, who married the hereditary princesses. There are some indications that Cinyras was not in fact the founder of the temple at Paphos. An older tradition ascribed the foundation to a certain Aerias, whom some regarded as a king, and others as the goddess herself.(129) Moreover, Cinyras or his descendants at Paphos had to reckon with rivals. These were the Tamirads, a family of diviners who traced their descent from Tamiras, a Cilician augur. At first it was arranged that both families should preside at the ceremonies, but afterwards the Tamirads gave way to the Cinyrads.(130) Many tales were told of Cinyras, the founder of the dynasty. He was a priest of Aphrodite as well as a king,(131) and his riches passed into a proverb.(132) To his descendants, the Cinyrads, he appears to have bequeathed his wealth and his dignities; at all events, they reigned as kings of Paphos and served the goddess as priests. Their dead bodies, with that of Cinyras himself, were buried in the sanctuary.(133) But by the fourth century before our era the family had declined and become nearly extinct. When Alexander the Great expelled a king of Paphos for injustice and wickedness, his envoys made search for a member of the ancient house to set on the throne of his fathers. At last they found one of them living in obscurity and earning his bread as a market gardener. He was in the very act of watering his beds when the king’s messengers carried him off, much to his astonishment, to receive the crown at the hands of their master.(134) Yet if the dynasty decayed, the shrine of the goddess, enriched by the offerings of kings and private persons, maintained its reputation for wealth down to Roman times.(135) When Ptolemy Auletes, king of Egypt, was expelled by his people in 57 B.C., Cato offered him the priesthood of Paphos as a sufficient consolation in money and dignity for the loss of a throne.(136)