Roman Malta

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The first recorded contact of the Maltese Islands with the Romans was a missed opportunity for the Romans. In 255BC, during the First Punic War the Roman fleet was on its way back from an expedition to Africa when they stopped in Malta, pillaged whatever they could carry away and devastated the rest. Clearly, at the time, the Romans did not recognize the strategic significance of the islands.

However, the Carthaginians who ruled Malta in that period presumed that sooner or later the Romans would return to take over the islands. Therefore they took military measures in order to avoid invasion and in 218BC, when the Romans returned they met with a Carthaginian garrison of almost 2,000 men under the command of Hamilcar. Yet this served for nothing as the Romans did not even have to fight in order to take over Malta in that year.

Malta was not considered a colony of the Roman Empire but had the status of part of the province of Sicily; for many centuries these islands shared the same faith as seen in the Roman temples and statues of Roman gods found here. Once Malta was under their rule, the Romans did not impose themselves on the Maltese people. In fact, evidence shows that the islands retained Punic artistic fashions and that the Punic language was still spoken, though not written on official documents, till the 1st century AD and probably longer. Alongside these two cultures there was a third one, Greek, which had already spread in the Punic world and became stronger with the growth of Rome.

In the Roman period, the Punic city of Maleth, the administrative hub of the island, became known as Melite. Its size grew to its maximum extent, occupying the entire area of present-day Mdina and large parts of Rabat, extending to what is now the Church of St Paul. Remains show that the city was surrounded by thick defensive walls and was also protected by a protective ditch.

Meanwhile, Roman occupation introduced reforms in governance and religion. By the 1st century AD the Maltese islands had their own senate and people’s assembly and minted their coins based on Roman weight measurements.

The islands prospered under Roman rule, and were eventually raised to the level as a Municipium and a Foederata Civitas as an ‘allied state’, a formally independent and equal city-state. Many Roman antiquities still testify to the close link between the Maltese inhabitants and Sicily. Roman remains found in both Malta and Gozo include the remains of an impressive residence, the Domus Romana at Rabat Malta, the home of a rich Roman aristocrat, where excavations revealed sophisticated Pompeian-style mosaics.

Christianity was introduced to the islands in 60AD, when St Paul was shipwrecked in Malta on his way to face trial in Rome. Yet contrary to the general belief that the locals turned into Christians, Roman pagan gods and the emperor continued to be worshipped officially on both islands from the 1st down to the 3rd century. Until now, no archaeological records confirm the practice of Christianity at this time, though some people might have followed this new religion in secret, without leaving a trace.

Deep political, economic and spiritual crises affected the Roman Empire between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. This eventually led to its division during the reign of Emperor Constantine I, when the seat of power was moved to Byzantium, renaming the city Constantinople and creating the Roman Empire of the east or the Byzantine Empire.

During the reign of Emperor Justinian, in 535AD, the Maltese Islands were assimilated within the Byzantine empire, along with Sicily. The relatively high quantity of Byzantine ceramics found in Malta suggests that the island might have had an important strategic role within the empire from the 6th to 8th centuries.

Threatened by Muslim expansion from the late 7th century onwards, it is thought that the Byzantines improved the defences of Malta, however they were conquered by the Muslim Arabs in 870AD.