HISTORY OF MALTA.

3

themselves 736 years before Christ, and called it Melitaion ;whether on account of the excellent honey it produced, or inhonour of the nymph Melita, the daughter of Nereus and Doris,we cannot pretend to determine.

The Greeks, being accustomed to navigate along distantshores, and there found their colonies, according to the oracles ofApollo, established the worship of that god in every place theyvisited, and engraved his effigy, horses, and lyre, upon all theircoins. They dedicated a temple to him in Melita, in the veryplace which is now a square before the Town-house in the cityNotable. They created a high-priest, by the name of Hierothites;and afterwards established Archons to govern the island, withpower like that of those who afterwards presided in the govern-ment of Athens. There is not the smallest trace remaining ofthe Temple of Apollo; and the only ruins existing of Grecianarchitecture are those of a castle called Ghorgenti or Agrigenti,in honour of Phalaris the tyrant, of the town so named. Someexcavations made in a hill called Benjemma, intended for aburying place for the inhabitants, may also be deemed Grecianremains* to be seen in Malta.

Amongst a variety of antiquities of that time in themuseum of the public library is a square altar dedicated toProserpine, on the sides of which are sculptured two menoffering a fish to that goddess (PI. I. fig. 3): the front representsthe emblem employed by the Syracusians to describe Sicily ;

* See Chap. III.

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