Pygmalion was the legendary king of Cyprus in Greco-Roman mythology. According to stories of the king, he fell in love with a statue that he himself had sculpted. Surprising as it may sound, evidence suggests that King Pygmalion of Cyprus was a historical figure, but what do we know about the legendary king, and who was he really?
The legend of King Pygmalion of Cyprus
The fullest account of the story of Pygmalion comes from Metamorphoses, a poem by Roman writer Ovid in the early first century AD. However, this is not the only source for the legend of Pygmalion, nor is it the earliest.
According to this famous version of the story, Pygmalion was the grandfather of Cinyras, the king of Cyprus during the Trojan War according to Homer’s Iliad. Pygmalion was thoroughly unimpressed with the quality of women on the island. He watched them “waste their lives in wretched shame, and critical of faults which nature had so deeply planted through their female hearts.”
For this reason, he remained unmarried and instead decided to carve a beautiful ivory statue of a woman. The end result was so stunning and lifelike that Pygmalion fell in love with it and started treating it like a real woman. He presented her with countless gifts and adorned her with beautiful clothing and jewelry, even having her lay down on his bed.
He even prayed for a wife like the ivory statue, though he actually wished that the statue itself could come to life. Aphrodite, as the story goes, then responded to his pleas and turned the statue into a living person. She became the wife of King Pygmalion of Cyprus, and they had a daughter named Paphos together.
King Pygmalion of Cyprus before Ovid
Ovid was a Roman writer who infamously created his own versions of pre-existing Greek myths. For this reason, Ovid is not a trustworthy source for what the ancient Greeks (or even the Romans, for that matter) actually believed.
Nevertheless, there is good evidence that the legend of King Pygmalion of Cyprus was not invented by Ovid. For instance, the Christian writer Clement of Alexandria, in the second century AD, referred to how “the well-known Pygmalion of Cyprus fell in love with an ivory statue.” Clement remarks that it was Philostephanus who told this story. He was a Greek writer of the third century BC.
This proves that the legend of King Pygmalion of Cyprus predates Ovid. Interestingly, Clement’s description of the legend differs from Ovid’s version slightly. For example, Clement makes mention of the detail that the ivory statue was in fact a statue of Aphrodite herself. Notably, he does not say that Pygmalion was the one who had sculpted it.
This suggests that the statue in question was actually a pre-existing cult object with which Pygmalion fell in love. It was not a carving which he specifically made for its beauty, as in Ovid’s version. Furthermore, Ovid and Clement do not explicitly refer to Pygmalion as the King of Cyprus, but this designation does appear in Bibliotheca, by Pseudo-Apollodorus in the second century AD.
Did this legendary king really exist?
Was the legendary King Pygmalion of Cyprus an actual person? There is some intriguing evidence which suggests that he indeed was a historical figure. At least two ancient sources connect Pygmalion with both Cyprus and Phoenicia. For instance, the third century AD writer Porphyry described Pygmalion as a Phoenician who ruled over Cyprus.
Furthermore, Nonnos Panopolitanus of the fifth century AD also linked Pygmalion with both of these areas. In fact, as early as Hellanicus of Lesbos in the fifth century BC, there is a reference to Pygmalion’s founding of the Phoenician colony of Carpasia on Cyprus.
Such references suggest that Pygmalion was indeed a Phoenician king who established his rule over parts of Cyprus, which is not far from the ancient territory of the Phoenicians. Archaeology reveals that the Phoenicians of Tyre did establish colonies on Cyprus in the ancient period, and this began at least as early as the beginning of the eighth century BC.
Historical records indicate that the king of Tyre at the time was a monarch named Pygmalion. Therefore, it is highly likely that King Pygmalion of Cyprus from Greek mythology corresponds to the historical King Pygmalion of Tyre in the late ninth to early eighth century BC.
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