HISTORY OF MALTA.

5

About 528 years before the Christian era, the Carthaginiansdisputed the possession of Melita with the Greeks, and for sometime divided it betwixt them; but the Greeks were in the endobliged to yield up their power to the Carthaginians. The in-habitants, however, neither abandoned their dwellings nor theirgods; and both the Greek and the Punic or Phoenician lan-guages were equally spoken in Melita.

The riches of Carthage flowed to Malta, and rendering itssituation still more important, made it an object so interestingto the ambition and cupidity of the Romans, that it engagedtheir attention in the first Punic war; it was therefore plunderedby Attilius Regulus, and seized upon by Cornelius. The Romans,however, lost it soon afterwards, and never recovered it tillthe naval victory gained by C. Lutatius, 242 years before Christ,had produced a peace, which was granted to the Carthaginians,on condition of their giving up to the Romans all the islands intheir possession between Africa and Italy. T. Sempronius, atthe beginning of the second Punic Avar, Avas the first avIio en-tirely established the Roman dominion in Melita.

The only Punic monuments remaining in Malta are tAvopieces of marble {PL II. fig. 3 and 4), supposed to have been thebase and shaft of a chandelier, with a Phoenician inscriptionon each; and the same inscription in Greek. These have fre-quently been explained; but the only good translation is bythe learned Abbe Barthelemy, and is as follows:—“ We, Ab-“ dassar and Asseremor, the sons of Asseremor, the son of Ab-