page_title: Byzantine Malta
section_title: Justiniac period
hierarchical_section_title: Byzantine Malta / Early Byzantine sources on Malta / Justiniac period
context_page_description: Malta 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 nominal Gaudomelete, 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 Byzantine Sicily.
context_section_description: 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.
  Malta probably passed on to the Byzantines around the time of their conquest of Sicily in 535. A further quote in Procopius' Bellum Gothicum describing the war against the Gothic kingdom of Italy, suggests that Malta formed part of the Empire by 544, although it does not mention the islands specifically. The final reference in Procopius regarding Malta refers to 550, regarding the voyage of Artabanes to Sicily. Appointed magister militum per Thracias, Artabanes was sent to replace the aged senator Liberius in command of an expedition under way against Sicily, which had recently been overrun by the Ostrogoth king Totila. Artabanes failed to catch up with the expedition before it sailed for Sicily, and his own fleet was driven back and scattered by severe storms in the Ionian Sea, with Artabanes himself being unexpectedly saved after landing in Malta. Although there are suggestions that Artabanes reached Meleda instead of Malta, both the manuscript's tradition and geographic probability favour Malta.
  Other sources on Malta from the Justinian dynasty are limited, with few details on the islands' history. The sixth-century writer Arator described Malta as a statio, a port of call for ships, although this is used in reference to St. Paul's shipwreck on the islands, and should not be used to infer the naval status of Malta, although reference to the harbours of Malta and Gozo are found in later Arabic texts.
caption: A member of the retinue of Emperor Justinian I in the mosaic in the Church of San Vitale, Ravenna, which is usually identified with Belisarius
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