Professor Godfrey Wettinger, writing in another section of the press, reiterated his belief that Al Himyari in his report about the occupation of these Islands by the Aglabite Arabs was referring to the whole Maltese archipelago when he mentioned Malta. Even so, I am not yet convinced that what happened on the larger island was repeated exactly in Gozo.

This is also true of Gozo’s

depopulations.

It is said that Gozo was depopulated in 870 AD. It was depopulated once more in 1272 when it was attacked by the Swabians.

Two years later, in 1274, the Genoese attached Gozo once more in revenge against the Anjovins who had destroyed two Genoese galleons in the Maltese harbour, and this time too Gozo was depopulated.

In 1283 Gozo came under the Aragonese and, according to Ramon Muntaner, Rabat (lo raval) and the town (la vila) were quite populated, and Ruggiero de Lauria left a garrison of 100 soldiers to guard the castello or fortified palace which was part and parcel of the town on the hill“… qui és ab la vila ensems”.

Believe it or not, some 30 years later King James II of Sicily also attacked Gozo in revenge for his dethronement in 1295 and carried many people away and enslaved them.

Reading this I get the impression that in Gozo there must have been someone like Deucalion, son of the Titan Prometheus and king of Pithia in Thessalia, who with his wife Pyrrha threw stones over his shoulders and these stones were turned into people. Maybe that is how Gozo was populated again and again after suffering so many depopulations.

Not even the great siege of Gozo in 1551 was that terrible to strip Gozo one hundred per cent of its population because some 200 able-bodied Gozitans managed to escape from being taken into bondage.

How can anyone then convince me that Gozo stood depopulated for 150 years, as stated by Ibn Hauqal and Al Himyari? Or did one copy the ‘shocking facts’ from the other?

By the way, can anyone assure me how Count Roger managed to storm the town perched on the hill in 1091 without siege engines?

Anton F. Attard

VICTORIA