I read with interest Joseph M. Brincat’s piece Muslim Malta and Christian Gozo? (December 6) and it is with satisfaction that it concludes with: “The ... documentation that has become available ... can allow us ... to trace a picture inferring some form of Christian continuity under Muslim rule in Malta and Gozo”. It is with “the significance one chooses to give it” that I find fault and on which I should like to comment.

Prof. Brincat disagrees with the interpretation of the place name Melitogaudos as Gozo opted for in my recent joint publication Tristia ex Melitogaudo and he reaches this conclusion on a purely textual analysis of the poem. It is, of course, readily agreed that the toponym Gozo/Gaudos is never mentioned on its own, whereas Melitegaudos occurs three times, and each of Malta and Melite occurs twice. For the use of these occurrences Prof. Brincat gives his own reasons, but different equally tenable reasons can be adduced: Each of the two times “Melite” is mentioned (ff. 85rv) occur in connection with St Paul’s shipwreck on Malta. It is clear that the poet here intends to be as faithful as possible to the text in Acts 28:1 – “tote epegnõmen hoti Melite he nesos kaleitai” (we then learned that the island was called Malta). “Malta” is mentioned twice in marginal notes (ff. 35v, 54) in relation to his exile, in both contexts in connection with Barbaria, “the home of the unbelieving Agarenes”. This is clearly a generic reference to “the Maltese archipelago” as distinct from his homeland, Sicily, a concept emphasised soon afterwards (f. 54v) when he complains that “his dark-skinned sisters” and his mother are left completely in the dark as to whether he was being led in exile.

The first occurrence of “Melitegaudos” (f. 84) comes in connection with Roger II’s attack on the island, the second, soon afterwards (f. 84v), in a marginal note explaining that his place of exile was precisely this same Melitegaudos.

In the third mention, when the poet says that Publius was Governor of Melitogaudos (f. 85v), it is obvious that the poet, by using the place name in exactly the same form, is emphasising the link between his own despicable exile with that of the vas electionis, Paul, a point he has just made in the text of the poem (verse 11 of f. 84v). This description may be at variance with 21st-century scholarship and our present knowledge of how Malta and Gozo had distinct municipia and, possibly, different prõtoi in the 1st/2nd century. But was this that obvious to a 12th-century exile on Gozo who lacked books he could consult?

Prof. Brincat also questions the book’s interpretation of Melitegaudos as “Gozo of Malta” in favour of his own “Malta and Gozo”, saying he consulted experts who assured him that this latter interpretation is also acceptable. Be that as it may – although it would be very helpful to know who the experts are and, more importantly, what they said citing parallel examples – the expert opinion followed by the book is none other than that of the Byzantinist, Prof. Theodore Tsolakis of the University of Thessaloniki who, on p. 56 of his cited paper, clearly identifies Melitegaudos with Gozo, that is, “Gozo of Malta”. This, after all, is the standard meaning given to a Greek compound word made up of two nouns, in which the first noun assumes an adjectival – and the second a nominal-function. Although several examples can be cited from Classical Greek literature it is best to let the poem speak for itself, and consider how the poet himself makes use of such compounds. Of the several examples that can be cited one can mention: On f. 115, brotourgetes < brotos (a mortal man) + hourgates (workman, producer, creator), for “creator of mortal man”; like it, mousourgetes (f. 14v) for David, the composer of psalms, thaumatourgia (f. 118), thymostasia (f. 100), kosmosõstos (f. 2), phytosporos (f. 64) etc. Especially significant is how he treats other geminated place-names like “Tyre and Sidon certainly not as Tyro(u)sidõnos (on the model of Melitegaudos) but as Tyrou kai Sidõnos (f. 110 verse 3).

It must also be said that the poet very deliberately uses Melitegaudos, as opposed to Gaudomelite, and this for no prosodic reason. All other occurrences of this compound place-name are of the form Gaudomelite (cf. Tristia, pp. xxii-xxiii for references). The poet wants it to be Melitegaudos and not otherwise. Finally, it is to be noted that Prof. Brincat’s assertion rests on the single leg of his “linguistic” interpretation. The conclusion in the book Tristia that Melitegaudos refers to Gozo is the result of convergence of evidence from a variety of sources, not least, taking into account Giliberto Abate’s census of ca. 1241.