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The Tradition of an Ancient Greek Colony in Malta

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The Tradition of an Ancient Greek Colony in Malta I ~ ~------------------ ~'lttw1ien - I. A Journal of Melitensia and the Humanities EDITORIAL BOARD: V. Mallia-Milanes M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S.(Lond .); L.J . Scerri M .A .; J. Zammit Ciantar M.A.; C. Caruana Carabez M.A. Slll(.lic·s ill j\klil~lh;.l allci l'al'~ I' r ~i a l~d LU ihe currelll ' ., \dlallc~<.J l..el~I ' clI!"r;culd , 11< 1u ld be di re(leli .le> I::elil,"·, tiypi1"", '11" "C'" LI Cl'U ll 1 (:\rls)' .\isida, ;>.I all<l. I leI. 24271 h, hi . 5 1). JII/!.\Crll'lI()1/: .\ Jallii: .li ngic l' OI' I, 55,(,1115 ; ILlillllie (six 'lUllIb,'rs ), LIl13. 15 ,O, pu" lage illclud"d . Ba ck nUlllbers, :; Sc. ()\l lt.: r C ~ )Ulll!"lC''): pka ..,\...' \\ rit t.' fll! d~!~lils . Volu me IV 1983 Number 1 CONTENTS The Tradit io n of an Ancient Greek Colon y in Ma lta Anthony Bonanno ............... ...... ,...... .. ... .......... ' .. , ........ An Excercise in Practical Cri ticism: G. M. Hopk ins' "The Windhover" Charles Enffa ..................... .. ............. , ..... ,.... ,............. 19 La figura femminile in Ire Novelle del Novecenlo Gerard Eugeja ,................... ,.... .. ...... , ... ................... ,.. 2S Dali la Generali glial Xej riet tal-Kritika Letlerarja :Vloderna Oliver Friggieri ........................ " ....... ,.. ............ ... ....... 32 © H' ph en P il. --'; I" ' ( -"1" /" "i '1 MIC \ " P . B. q9 B I ..........~~--......~............~............~.....--..~..........ftM............~s-~~ THE TRADITION OF AN ANCIENT .: GREEK COLONY IN MALTA Anthony Bonanno The persistent tradition of a G reek colonization of the Maltese Islands in a n­ cient times was inspired mainly by ancient literary allusions. These are basically: 1) the identification of the Homeric island of Ogygia , Calypso's refuge, wit h Malta; 2) the reference in the Greek poet Lycophron to the se ttlement in M alta of a group of Greek warriors on their return horne from the T rojan war; 3) the ties of friendship between the 1vlaltese and Phalaris, the Greek tyrant of Agrigento, revealed in three of a group of letters attributed to him; 4) the mythical reign of a king of Malta, named Battus, homo nymous o f another Greek king historically ass ociated with the founda tion of the Greek colony of Cyrene in N orth A fri ca; 5) Thucydides' inclusion of 'the small islands' with that part of Sicily which, after an alleged Phoenician domination , was colonized by the Greeks. 0 This theory appeared to receive confirmation from numerous ar ch a ~ ogical objects found in these islands which sh owed G reek characteristics or bore inscrip­ ti o ns in the Greek language. L1 TEHAln n IIH:."U. For this reason, although Quint inus cannot be considered the inventor or ori ginator of this particular tradition (as he is of other traditions concerning fvla ltese ancient historY),1b ecause he did not write specifically of a Greek domina­ tion of Malta, sti ll he sowed the fi rst seeds whi ch were to germinate in the works dealing with Maltese antiquities in the following century. He did so by failing to question the historical value o f the lege ndary reign of a Maltese Bartus and of the apocryphal connecti on with P halaris (both o f which he mentions in his descrip­ tio n of \lalta ) and by reproducing a Greek in scription and a Maltese coin both containing the G reek version of the name of the Maltese people (MELIT AlO N) .1 The first writer to advoca te this theory of a Greek settlemenr in l'vlalta was the Germa n geographer and am iquaria n Phili pp Clliver in his book on ancient Sicil y publish ed in 16 19. J Initiall y Clli ver appears convinced that the Phoenicians, hav- I. See A. BOll all ilO. " QlIi lllill U> alld Ihe Ill(al illll lli l il c lell lpic (ll H~ r( lIl c; al \ l arsa.\lokk." !\.lc'lira H isIO /'lCCl . V II[, 3 (1982) U!llilc r rc,.,). J. QlIll1l lllll'>. 1/lS t/ lue .\ k /lfu(' (/('scriPlfli ex C() 11111 !(,II {(}rtI.1 ( e (UIII (fIlI) 1idiww ( uill. L yo ns 1536, IT. .'\3\ -A 4\, l:ll\ ; re-c diled a Ill] Ir'I l1.) [al eLl III H.C.R. Vel la, The t,,(/iesl Desc(ip liun uFL'vla/lu (Lmlls 1536), \Ialla 1 l) ~O , pp . 18 -21. 26-27. 3. 1' 11. CllI\ criu" Sinlia Wllllilic/ ; CUIII II III/(Jn /JIIS /IISU/IS ei adjacenli/Jus; ite/1/ Sardinia el Corsica, Lcidcll 16 1'1 . 1 . I-azdlu" lJe (,,!JIIS sicldis t/eClides d uae, Pal er mo [558 , pp .l0-1 2, follo wing ,·1 ,.,,'1 , ill l ile !\'" biCp., 01 Qllilll lllll', ilaLl al,,' <I \ llidcd ( llll lJ1lC'n i illg on a C reek ( olol1i,al ;OIl of \ lal !, I , V Pl l l ' ' .. '1.:' I ~L lived in the countryside whereas the Greeks populated the town. 13 ing occupied Malta even before the Trojan war when they ousted the Phoe&i­ The last section of Clliver's chapter on Malta is taken up by a discussion of I cians, continued to do so u ntil the time of Skylax (around 350 B.C.) and the identification of Ogygia, the island of Calypso, with Malta .14 He finds a sur­ Diodorus Siculus (first century B. C.) both of whom declare Malta Phoenician o r prisingly close correspondence between Homer's description of the island in­ Carthaginian.4 But after citing the passage from Lycophron's Alexandra, in habited by the daughter of Atlas l5 and Quintin's account of the fertility of which a group of Greek warriors on their homeward journey is said to have Maltal6 and finds further proof in support of his identification in the settled in Malta soon after the sack of Troy, he seems to <; hange his mind. A dmit­ geographical location of the same island given by H omer elsewhere in the ting that Lycophron was a poet and could thus be inventing new Greek colonies Odyssey. In book VII Ogygia is said to lie far out in the open sea and in Book I it he seeks surer evidence else where. The possibility of a Greek settlement, albeit of is placed "where the navel of the sea is " Y a muc h later date than that suggested by Lycophron, appeared to be strengthened T he identifi cation of Gozo, Malta's sister island, wi th the H omeric island of by 1he lies of friendship between the Maltese and P halaris, the Greek sixth cen­ Calypso (which is taken for granted by the local people) is not a modern 'inven­ 5 tu ry tyrant of Akragas, implied in the letters allegedly written by the latter. • tion' but goes back to the third century B.C. writer Callimachus (c.305-245 To su pport this view ClLiver cites the ancient marble' Inscription and the coin B.C.).!3 Callimachus was an A lexandrian grammaticus and one of the most " de qui bus ita tradit Ioannes Quintinus H eduus ... "6 The ivory statuettes of Vic­ representative writers of Alexandrian poetry o f the early period. Most of his works tory stolen by Verres from the sanctuary of the goddess Juno in Malta could not, have gone lost but he is often quoted by other.ancient grammarians. Besides, the in Clliver's opinion, be other than Greek.i Even Diodorus Melitensis mentioned papyrologic al discoveries in Egypt in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have by the orator Cicero in the same context was Greek, as well as the pre~ious ' silver filled many gaps in his works. This reference to Gozo survives in a fragment cu ps he look such pains in saving from ' the rapacious pillages of Verres.8 which is classified as incertae sedis, i.e. it is not known to which o f Callimachus' ~ l oreover, in the Roman assault o f218 B.C. Malta with its ci ty and Carthaginian works it belonged . 19 garrison could not have been gi ven up (t raditur is the verb used by the historian Li vy9) other than by the Greek population of the ci ty. IO Cllive r adopts Callimachus's identification, substituting Malta for Gozo. 20 T he Ge rman sc holar's conclusi o n after considering these and other arguments Abela follows suit and quotes also the authority of Gero nimo Manduca , the Maltese Jesuit, who had gone eve,n further and, in his description of the caves of was that Sk ylax and D i o d ~ rus Siculus were anachronistic in bringing the Phoen i ci o-Carthaginian occupation of Malta down to their o wn times, while MeiJ ieha, in particular the crypt consecrated to Our Lady, had written of a Lycophron was exaggerating the opposite way by taking the Greek colonisatio n " palatium miro ordi ne in spel uncis exci tum ex Homericis notis, recenter ' deprehensum a P hilippo Cluverio in descriptionis Melitae, & Siciliae" .21 The of the island up to the time of th e sack of Troy. A similar transposition in time tradition o f this Homeric connection with Malta was kept alive by numerous and space was, according to Clliver, Ovid's story o f the hospitality offered by other writers, both Maltese and foreign ,22 but several other isla nds -were p-roposed Bartus, Greek ki ng of Malta , to A nna, sister o f Dido . Both legends, however, must have been inspired by the awa reness o f a G ree k colo nization of Malta. 11 As to the barbaroi mentioned in the Acts of the A postles in connection with St.
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