There are few Roman remains on the island of Malta. The most famous one – intact – is the Roman villa outside the old capital of Mdina. Not far from here, in the village of Mtarfa, the Romans had built the Temple of Proserpina.
This article examines what happened to it and where you can see remains of it today.
Greek and Roman mythology
Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter in Greek mythology. She was kidnapped by Hades, god of the underworld, who tricks her into staying with him during the winter time. She personifies vegetation which withdraws at the end of autumn, only to reappear in spring.
Greek priestesses in Sicily tended to build temples dedicated to her. As the Roman Empire expanded, they set up in Rome too. They merged the cult of Persephone with the Roman goddess Libera. The Romans didn’t call her Persephone; the nature of the Sicilian dialect meant her name was pronounced as Proserpine. The Romans connected this with the word prospere (to prosper) and referred to their new goddess as Proserpina.
So what’s the connection with Malta?
The temple of Proserpina
The Temple of Proserpina is a Maltese Roman temple mentioned by a contemporary source. Historian Gian Francesco Abela found an inscription about it in Mtarfa in 16131 and concluded the temple was here1 2.
This is not the only item from antiquity discovered in Malta. The Cippi of Melqart were also found here, and are known as the Maltese Rosetta Stone.
A Latin inscription celebrates a freedman who lived during the time of Emperor Augustus. His name was Chrestion, and he was the procurator of Malta and Gozo1 3. He financed the restoration of the temple of Proserpina in Mtarfa1. It appears that the walls of the temple were about to collapse in the first century BCE3, which means the temple must have been around for some time by then.
Mtarfa may sound remote but it is a logical place for such a temple. It is close enough to the city of Mdina, which was the capital city in those days. It also would have been visible from a large part of the islands as the Mtarfa hill is almost as prominent as the Mdina hill.
The chapel in Tal-Virtu is on top of a Roman-era crypt. This is on the other side of Mdina from Mtarfa.
Where is it today?
Count Gian Antonio Ciantar, an 18th century historian, claims that the Knights used marble from this temple for the facade of the Auberge d’Italie in Valletta2. It was Grandmaster Carafa who built the second storey for this Auberge1 4, which must be when it was finished.
This makes it sound like the Italian knights desecrated the temple for their own construction needs. This isn’t out of character; humanity only recently learned to prize its history.
This desecration is why we have so few barbicans today.
Borzesi’s guide to the Maltese islands from 1830 describes the temple ruins as being visible. He adds that “every antiquarian does not omit visiting”5 the temple. This suggests the temple wasn’t destroyed till after the 1830s.
As a result, one of the few – if not the only – Greco-Roman remains on Malta was re-used as the marble on another historical site.
We may never know how many other Greco-Roman temples there were on Malta.
- Il-Muzew ta’ l-Antikitajiet Rumani; Vincent Zammit; Il-Mument; 1999-05-09[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Melita Classica; Journal of the Malta Classics Association; 2016[↩][↩]
- Cult & Continuity: A religious biography of the Maltese archipelago from the Neolithic up till 535 CE; Joerie van Sister; Leiden University; 2013-12-15[↩][↩]
- A hand book, or guide, for strangers visiting Malta, p115; Thomas MacGill; 1839[↩]
- The historical guide to the island of Malta and its dependencies; Giuseppe Pericciuoli Borzesi; 1830[↩]