Salamis

Salamis was the principal city on the eastern coast of the island of Cyprus (modern Famagusta), situated at the mouth of the Pediaeus River on a broad bay of the eastern Mediterranean. In the first century it was the largest and most commercially significant city on the island, with a substantial Jewish community evidenced by the plural "synagogues" mentioned in Acts 13:5. Paul and Barnabas visited Salamis on their first missionary journey after sailing from Seleucia, the port of Antioch in Syria (Acts 13:4–5). Barnabas, himself a native of Cyprus (Acts 4:36), may have had personal connections to the city. The missionaries proclaimed the word in the synagogues, with John Mark accompanying them as an assistant. Salamis was the starting point for the crossing of the entire island westward to Paphos, where they confronted the sorcerer Bar-Jesus and the proconsul Sergius Paulus was converted (Acts 13:6–12).