(4) History. The island was first colonized by the Phcenicians, from whom it was taken by the Greek colonists in Sicily, about B. C. 736; but the Carthaginians began to dispute its posses sion about B. C. 528, and eventually became en tire masters of it. From their hands it passed into those of the Romans, B. C. 242, who treated the inhabitants well, making Melita a municipium, and allowing the people to be governed by their own laws. The government was administered by a propr2etor, who depended upon the prwtor of Sicily; and this office appears to have been held by Publius when Paul was on the island (Acts xxviii :7). On the division of the Roman empire, Melita belonged to the western portion ; but hav ing, in A. D. 553, been recovered from the Van dals by Belisarius, it was afterwards attached to the empire of the East. About the end of the ninth century the island was taken from the Greeks by the Arabs, who made it a dependency upon Sicily, which was also in their possession. The Arabs have left the impress of their aspect language, and many of their customs, upon the present inhabitants, whose dialect is to this day perfectly intelligible to the Arabians, and to the Moors of Africa. Malta was .taken from the Arabs by the Normans in A. D. moo, and after wards underwent other changes till A. D. 153o, when Charles V., who had annexed it to his empire, transferred it to the Knights of St. John
of Jerusalem, whom the Turks had recently dis possessed of Rhodes. Under the knights it be came a flourishing state, and was the scene of their greatest glory and most signal exploits. The institution having become unsuited to modern times, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, com monly called Knights of Malta, gradually fell into decay, and the island was surrendered to the French under Bonaparte when on his way to Egypt in 1798. From them it was retaken by the English with the concurrence and assistance of the natives; and it was to have been restored to the Knights of Malta by the stipulations of the treaty of Amiens ; but as no sufficient security for the independence of the Order (composed mostly of Frenchmen) could be obtained, the English re tained it in their hands; which necessary infrac tion of the treaty was the ostensible ground of the war which only ended with the battle of Waterloo. The island is still in the hands of the English. who have lately remodeled the govern ment to meet the wishes of the numerous in habitants.
It has been asserted that no vipers exist in Malta, but Lewin saw a serpent there which he regarded as a viper ; but even if not found on the thickly-populated island now, this would not prove that they did not exist in Paul's day and have since been exterminated. (Boisgelin, His tory of Malta, 18°4; Bartlett, Overland Route; Harper's Classical Dict.)