Byzantine Malta

Malta (Ancient Greek: Μελέτης, Melétēs) was ruled by the Byzantine Empire, from the time of the Byzantine conquest of Sicily in 535-6 to 869-870, when the islands were occupied by Arabs. Evidence for the three centuries of Byzantine rule in Malta is very limited, and at times ambiguous. Historians theorise that Byzantine Malta was exposed to the same phenomena affecting the Central Mediterranean, namely a considerable influx of Greek settlers and Hellenic culture, administrative changes brought about by the reorganisation of Sicily along the lines of a Byzantine theme, and significant naval activity in the Mediterranean following the rise of Islam.

Byzantine sources are scant on the Maltese islands, although a handful of records group them together as the Gaudomelete (Γαυδομελέτη, Gaudomelétē), a term that first appears in the pseudoepigraphical Acts of Peter and Paul. The islands were a place of relegation and exile. With Muslim expansion in North Africa, Malta shifted from a military base and trade post linking Sicily and the other Byzantine possessions in the Italian peninsula to the Exarchate of Africa, to an outlying satellite and guardpost of the Byzantine Theme of Sicily.

Historians have concluded that Malta played a limited strategic role in the Byzantine Empire. The subsequent Arab conquest led to a complete break between the Byzantine era and later periods. While there are studies about alleged Byzantine or Christian survival, the sparseness of evidence implies a weak case for a lasting Byzantine legacy in Malta.

The earliest mentions of Malta in this era are scant, and usually inferred in passages relating to Sicily. In a passage by Victor Vitensis, Bishop of Vita, historians infer that towards the end of the fifth century, the Maltese islands were conquered by Vandals from their Kingdom in North Africa, and then handed to Odoacre, the Ostrogothic king of Italy. Historians theorise that Malta remained in Vandal hands from around 455 to 476, and then granted to Odoacre as tribute, before passing on to Theodoric after this defeat of Odoacre in 493.

There is no evidence of a Bishop of Malta before 553, with no record appearing of a Maltese bishop attending any council in Vandal Africa. However, as no episcopal lists survive from Africa, historians are unable to assess whether Malta had a bishop or whether the islands formed part of the African church at this early stage.

Malta suffers from a lack of attention in Byzantine sources, translating into a long-lasting perception amongst historians that the archipelago lay at the margins of the strategic, political and military interests of the Byzantine Empire. This view was only overturned in recent years, following advances in Maltese archaeology. Analysis of ceramics found that the Byzantines still sent navies into the Western Mediterranean well into the 9th century - confirming that Malta was a strategic stepping stone in the defence system around North Africa, Sicily and the Balearics. Although occasionally raided by Arabs naval forces, Malta - together with Sardinia and the Balearics - provided the Byzantines with a good strategic base in the central and western Mediterranean, enabling them to maintain an economic and military presence.

The trade volume into the Maltese islands, was not only military in nature. Local political elites were also supplied with Eastern Mediterranean goods. Sigillographic evidence concludes Maltese elites included archontes, bishops and members of the ecclesiastical communities. The islands' commercial vitality, reflecting their strategic position in the Mediterranean, and a degree of autonomy which probably allowed the elites to bridge the gap between Muslim Africa and "Byzantine Italies." Maltese elites took on an active stance and engaged in political and trade exchanges with Muslim communities in North Africa - proven by finds of Umayyad coins on the islands and the finding of a seal belonging to Niketas - archon and droungarios of Malta - in Tunisia.

One of the earliest mentions of the Maltese islands can be found in a list of donations by Emperor Constatine I in the early fourth century, which includes a grant to the Lateran baptistery of a massa with revenues of 222 solidi which was apparently located on the island of Gozo. However, the first proper mention of Medieval Malta in the context of the Eastern Roman Empire is found in Procopius' Bellum Vandalicum detailing the Byzantine campaign in North Africa. The Byzantine general Belisarius is described "touching at" Malta in 533, while the Roman expeditionary force was sailing from Kaukana to North Africa. However, the Greek verb used can mean either "landed" or "approached." In the same passage, Procopius describes Malta as dividing the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas, indicating that the islands may have lied on a maritime border separating Vandal and Byzantine spheres. The passage does not say that Belisarius conquered the islands, or that the Maltese islands were already in Byzantine hands. In fact, Malta is not included in the Synecdmus of Hierocles, which details a list of cities belonging to the Empire in 527/8.