Later Greek poets and playwrights frequently mention the early influences of Cyprus.

Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty, is said to have been born out of the sea foam on the island's west coast.

The most important of many temples to Aphrodite is built at Paphos, where the love goddess is venerated for centuries, and even in modern times young women visit the ruins to make votive offerings and to pray for good marriages or fertility.

Aphrodite is mentioned by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey, as is a Cypriot king, Kinyras, of Paphos.

The Late Bronze Age on Cyprus is characterized by a fusion of the indigenous culture and the cultures brought by settlers from the mainland areas.

This fusion takes place over a long period and is affected by shifting power relationships and major movements of peoples throughout the eastern Mediterranean area.

Cyprus is affected particularly by the introduction of iron tools and weapons, signaling the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, near the end of the second millennium BCE.

Iron does not displace bronze overnight, any more than one culture immediately displaces another (pockets of native Cypriot culture, for example, will exist for several more centuries).

The introduction of iron, however, heralds major economic changes, and the numbers of Greek settlers ensure the dominance of their culture.

…Paphos, …

Egypt under the Saite dynasty had at the end of the seventh century BCE become the predominant power in the eastern Mediterranean when the Assyrian Empire finally broke up.

The Cypriot kingdoms in about 569 recognize the pharaoh Amasis II as their overlord.

Direct Egyptian influence is not always apparent, but many limestone sculptures reproduce Egyptian conventions in dress, and Egyptian models directly inspire some statues.

The Cypriot kings, who in 525 BCE transfer their allegiance to the Persian conquerors of Egypt, retain their independence until the accession of Persian king Darius I in 522 but are then incorporated into the fifth satrapy of the Persian Empire.

All the Greek kingdoms of Cyprus join the Ionians when they revolt in 499-498, except …

…Cyprus, the Persian suppression of the revolt on Cyprus culminates in sieges of Paphos and …

The Cypriot kings during Persian king Xerxes' invasion of Greece in 481-480 BCE, like the Ionian Greeks of coastal Anatolia, …

Ptolemy has lost what he had held in Greece, and apparently mingles as little as possible in the rivalries between Asia Minor and Greece from this point forward,  but in 295-294 he regains control over Cyprus, together with …

Antiochus, angered at his loss of control over the Egyptian king, leads a second attack on Egypt in 168 BCE and sends a fleet to capture Cyprus, whose governor surrenders the island to Seleucid control.