Melita
Melita, known today as Malta, is the largest island in a group located strategically between Europe and Africa in the Mediterranean Sea. The island has a rich history that dates back to the Neolithic period, marked by the construction of impressive megalithic temples. It became a significant Phoenician trading post around the ninth century BCE and later fell under Roman control during the Second Punic War. Melita flourished as a prosperous community known for its bronze coinage, textiles, olive oils, and honey, as described by historical figures such as Cicero and Diodorus.
The island's significance also includes the legendary shipwreck of St. Paul around 60 AD, which is traditionally regarded as the beginning of its Christian heritage. Throughout its history, Melita has experienced various occupations and influences, including those from the Carthaginians and Vandals. Archaeological sites reveal a well-developed urban structure, including a Roman villa, catacombs, and temples built over earlier shrines. Today, Melita's historical and cultural legacy remains a focal point for understanding the complex interactions of civilizations in the Mediterranean region.
Melita
Melite (Malta)
The largest of the group of Libyan (Maltese) islands, seventeen miles long and nine miles wide—the two next in size are Gaudus (Gozo) and Cuminum (Comino)—strategically situated between Europe and Africa, in the narrow channel which links the western and eastern portions of the Mediterranean Sea. Occupied since the Neolithic period—when a startling and unique series of megalithic temples were erected—Melita became a Phoenician trading post in about the ninth century, and a colony c 600. Subsequently passing into the hands of the Carthaginians, it was annexed at the beginning of the Second Punic War by the Romans (218), who placed the islands under the administration of the governor of Sicily.
Issuing bronze coins of its own with Punic and Greek inscriptions, Melita was called prosperous by Cicero, and Diodorus described the elegance of its houses. It was plundered, however, by Verres, the governor of Sicily, in 73–71, and the Civil Wars at the end of the Roman Republic caused a series of disturbances. In 46 Cicero wrote to a friend that he had persuaded Julius Caesar to pardon Aulus Licinius Aristoteles, a Melitan who had long and loyally supported the Pompeian cause; and after Caesar's murder the island was probably occupied first by the subordinates of Brutus and Cassius (who perhaps, it would seem from a monetary issue, planted a military colony there) and next by Pompey's son Sextus Pompeius, after whose defeat an officer of Octavian (the future Augustus), named Gaius Arruntanus Balbus, produced a coinage with the city's name in Greek and his own in Latin.
St. Paul was shipwrecked off the coast of the island cAD 60, and according to tradition its Christianity dates from that time. By the early second century Melita and Gaudus were granted the status of citizen communities (municipia), and enjoyed prosperity as producers of fine textiles and olive oils and honey; while Cuminum takes its name from the cumin seed. The islands were also well-known for a breed of lap dogs. It has been surmised that in the fifth century Melita succumbed to the Vandals.
Among villas of various dates, a large town house (now in Rabat, a suburb of Mdina, as the Arabs later called the Roman city) dates back to the third and second centuries BC and received extensions and decorations in the Augustan period (the Roman Villa Museum is now established on the site). Outside the city walls are catacombs of the fourth and fifth centuries AD, which closely resemble those of Rome. At Grand Harbor, which faced northeast and replaced the Carthaginian harbor on Marsascirocco Bay, wharves and storehouses and large baths have been located. Temples were founded on the sites of prehistoric and Carthaginian shrines. Circular defensive towers built at the approaches to the city have been attributed to a wide range of different dates.