LIMASSOL, or LIMISSO, a town of Cyprus, in the south of the island. Of the ancient city nothing but ruins now remains; though it was a celebrated place, even under the government of the dukes. King Richard, the conqueror of the last of these vassals of the empire, razed it in 1191, and it was never afterwards rebuilt. This city originally was the same as AMATHUS, or Amathonte; so famous, as Paufanias tells us, for its temple erected in honour of Venus and Adonis. Amathus was the residence of the first nine kings of the island; and, amongst others of Onelitus, who was subjected afterwards by the arms of Artabanus, the Persian general. This city, erected into an archbishopric in the time of the Christians, has produced a number of personages celebrated for their knowledge and the sanctity of their lives. In the neighbourhood there are several copper mines, which the Turks have been forced to abandon. The following lines, in the tenth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, prove that they were known in the time of that poet:
Copia viri forma, non jam Cytherea curat
Littora, non alto repetit Paphon aequore cunctam,
Pifcesque Guidon, gravidasque Amathunta metallis.
The place where the new Limassol now stands, formerly had the name of Nemesis, from the multitude of woods by which it was surrounded. Richard, king of England having destroyed Amathonte, Guy de Lusignan, in the 12th century, laid the foundation of that new city which the Greeks called Neapolis. The family of Lusignan, who continued to embellish and fortify it, built there palaces, and Greek and Latin churches; and made it the seat of a bishop. When the