AMATHUS, ancient city, Cyprus, on the south coast, about 24m. W. of Larnaka and 6m. E. of Limassol, among sandy hills and sand-dunes, which perhaps explains its name (Greek aµaOos, sand). The earliest remains hitherto found on the site are of the early iron age (i000-600 B.c.). Amathus maintained strong Phoenician sympathies, and refused to join the revolt of Cyprus against Persia (500-494 B.c.) (Herod. v. 105) . Evagoras of Sala mis was similarly opposed by Amathus about 385-380 B.C. in con junction with Citium and Soli (Diod. Sic. xiv. 98) ; and even after Alexander the city resisted annexation (Diod. Sic. xix. 62). Its temple of Adonis and Aphrodite (Venus Amathusia) remained famous in Roman time but is quite destroyed. Amathus derived its wealth from corn and from copper mines, of which traces can be seen inland; Ovid also mentions its sheep (Met. x. 227). But the epithet Amathusia in Roman poetry often means little more than "Cypriote." Amathus still flourished and produced a patriarch of Alexandria (Johannes Eleemon), as late as 606-616, but it was almost deserted when Richard Coeur de Lion won Cyprus by a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191. The rich necropolis has yielded valuable works of art ; but the city has vanished, ex cept fragments of a Byzantine church, and a great stone bowl on the acropolis. A similar vessel was transported to the Louvre in 1867. (See also CYPRUS.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-C. D. Cobham, Excerpta Cypria 0908) ; (older Bibliography.-C. D. Cobham, Excerpta Cypria 0908) ; (older travellers) L. P. di Cesnola, Cyprus (1878) ; British Museum, Excava tions in Cyprus (1899) ; E. Oberhummer in Pauty-Wissowa (s.v.).