“New Ideas about the Destruction of Paphos,” D. Soren and E. Lane 1980David Soren and Eugene Lane

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"The earthquakes of 332 and 342, which destroyed Salamis and Paphos, did a great deal of damage, but Curium (Kourion) was not finally abandoned until the Arab raids of the seventh century."9

These preceding two passages would seem to give irrevocable evidence that Paphos was in fact destroyed completely by 342 A.D. But Ambraseys has made a serious error. Paphos was never called Constantia or, so far as we know, aided by a late Roman emperor such as Constantius II. The quake of 342 which Ambraseys describes really happened to Salamis on the east coast and this is pointed out by the ancient sources.10

Sir George Hill refers to the destruction of Salamis in 332 and 342 in his history of Cyprus but neither Hill nor Oberhummer, the most definitive source for Cypriot quakes, have anything to say about Paphos during this period.11 Apparently, then, there is no evidence that Paphos fell in 342 A.D.

Hill does however cite a passage from the Life of Saint Hilarion by Saint Jerome:

"Paphum, urbem Cypri nobilem carminibus poetarum, quae frequenter terrae motu lapsa NUNC (emphasis ours) ruinam tantum vestigiis, quid olim fuerit, ostendit."12

This may be translated:

"Paphos, a city of Cyprus celebrated in the songs of poets, which, having been destroyed frequently by earthquakes, NOW shows only a ruin in traces of what it once was."

The Latin may be a little awkward but the message is clear. Paphos was by NOW (i.e. 391 A.D. when this passage was written) completely destroyed by frequent earthquakes and yet the implication is that when Saint Hilarion visited Paphos the city was flourishing and, presumably, not yet destroyed. Hilarion, already aged, was at Epidauros in Dalmatia when an enormous earthquake was felt there and, according to Jerome, throughout the entire world after the death of Julian. Thus we must be talking about an event which occurred in 363 A.D. or no more than a year or two later. Hilarion