page_title: Melite (ancient city)
section_title: Roman city
hierarchical_section_title: Melite (ancient city) / History / Roman city
caption_attribution_description: English: Wignacourt Museum main corridor and cells exhibitions
context_page_description: Melite or Melita was an ancient city located on the site of present-day Mdina and Rabat, Malta. It started out as a Bronze Age settlement, which developed into a city called Maleth under the Phoenicians, and became the administrative centre of the island. The city fell to the Roman Republic in 218 BC, and it remained part of the Roman and later the Byzantine Empire until 870 AD, when it was captured and destroyed by the Aghlabids. The city was then rebuilt and renamed Medina, giving rise to the present name Mdina. It remained Malta's capital city until 1530.
  Only a few vestiges of the Punic-Roman city have survived. The most substantial are the ruins of the Domus Romana, in which a number of well-preserved mosaics and statues have been found. Sparse remains of other buildings and parts of the city walls have been excavated, but no visible remains of the city's numerous temples, churches and other public buildings survive.
context_section_description: Roman rule in Malta was established in the early stages of the Second Punic War. In 218 BC, Roman consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus sailed with his fleet from Sicily to Melite, and the Carthaginian commander Hamilcar surrendered without offering much resistance. The island was subsequently integrated into the Roman province of Sicilia, and Maleth became known as Melite. The city was regarded as a haven, far from the politics of Rome.
  During the early Roman occupation, Melite had the status of a foederata civitas like other cities in Sicilia such as Messana (modern Messina) and Tauromenium (modern Taormina). Its inhabitants were regarded as socii and not as conquered people, so they retained their laws and had the right to mint their own coins. Although the Latin language and Roman religion were introduced, Punic culture and language survived in Malta until at least the 1st century AD. Eventually, Melite was given the status of municipium, being granted the same rights as other Roman cities.
  According to the Acts of the Apostles, when Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked on an island named Melite in 60 AD, he was greeted by Publius, the governor of Melite, and he cured his sick father. According to tradition, the population of Melite converted to Christianity, and Publius supposedly became the first Bishop of Malta and then Bishop of Athens before being martyred in 112 AD.
  Little is known about the city's layout since very few remains have survived. It was surrounded by thick walls and a ditch, with a number of cemeteries located outside the walls. According to tradition, the Mdina Cathedral was built on the site of the governor's residence, where Saint Paul cured Publius' father. A theatre was located in the city, and a Temple of Apollo stood nearby. The temple had a tetrastyle portico, and a wall forming part of its podium still exists beneath present-day Villegaignon Street.
  A Temple of Proserpina stood on the hill of Mtarfa, outside the walls of Melite. Only a fragment of a marble column and parts of a Punic cornice remain from this temple, but its existence is known from the Chrestion inscription, an inscription discovered in 1613 recording that the temple was renovated during the reign of Augustus. A statue of Saint Nicholas now stands on the site of the temple.
caption: Remains of a Roman building, used for the building of the church, now at the Wignacourt Museum
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