Evagoras of Salamis, according to Isocrates's panegyric, is a model ruler, whose aim is to promote the welfare of his state and of his subjects by the cultivation of Greek refinement and civilization.

Isocrates also states that many people migrated from Greece to Cyprus because of the noble rule of Evagoras.

Other sources of this period—Diodorus Siculus 14.115, 15.2-9; Xenophon, Hellenica 4.8—are not as unrestrainedly complimentary.

Evagoras has been called a pioneer of the adoption of the Greek alphabet in Cyprus in place of the older Cypriot syllabary.

Although Cypriots are Greeks and their language a dialect of Greek, the Arcadocypriot, they formerly wrote in an older and more difficult system, called Cypriot syllabary.

The war between Evagoras and Artaxerxes turns in the Persian favor in 381 BCE, when Evagoras' fleet is destroyed at the Battle of Citium, and he is compelled to flee to Salamis.

Here, although closely blockaded, Evagoras manages to hold his ground, and takes advantage of a quarrel between the two Persian generals to conclude peace in 376.

Evagoras is allowed to remain nominally king of Salamis, but in reality a vassal of Persia, to which he is to pay a yearly tribute.

The chronology of the last part of his reign is uncertain.

In 374, he is assassinated by a eunuch from motives of private revenge.

He is succeeded by his (probable) son, Nicocles.