Abstract
This article is based on epigraphic documents coming from the islands of Crete and Cyprus, where theonyms were organized around a central god (Zeus in Crete and Aphrodite in Cyprus). The use of divine names reveals two contrasting notions of Greek political power : the nomos in Crete, the archè in Cyprus. A special study is devoted to an early Cypriot alphabetic inscription with the word Paphia : it shows that the divine name was significant on three levels (civic, insular, and Greek). Moreover, this inscription belongs to a series of epigrams related to the last Cypriot kings. Its early dating can be sustained by the examination of a very similar inscription from Paphos, which we propose to date to the reign of Ptolemy Sôter rather than Philadelphus. If correct, this last document gives the earliest to date evidence (306 B. C.) of the use by Ptolemy Sôter of the title of basileus.
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