[ 242 ] 
fimilar to that before me are brought from Malta, 
where they are not infrequently found. From whence 
they may be inclined to colled:, as Sig. Abate Venuti 
(29) adually has done, that all fuch Punic medals as 
that I am attempting to explain made their firft ap- 
pearance in the ifland of Malta. In anfvver to the 
drd of thefe objedions, I would beg leave to reply, 
that as the two idands here mentioned were fo near 
one another, both of them free dates, coined their 
own money, were occupied by people of the fame 
nation, and confequently of the fame religion } 
neither their extent nor the number of inhabitants 
they refpedively contained can be of any great 
weight, with regard to the point in quedion. But 
farther, the idand of Gaulos, or Gozo, though lefler 
than Malta, was fo confiderable, probably by reafon 
of it’s excellent ports, mentioned by (3c) Diodorus 
Siculus, that Mela (31) and Pliny (32), in their Ihort 
lid of the idands of the Sicilian lea, towards the 
coad of Africa, place it even before Malta, the larged 
of them. And we learn from an antient infcription, 
that it had the honour of being a municipium (33) 
in the Roman times. Nor will the fecond objedion 
be of any great force, when it is conddered, that 
the two idands of Malta and Gozo were in (34) a 
(29) Ridolfin. Venut. ubi fup. p. 37. 
(30) Diod. Sic. ubi fup. Lib. V. 
(31) Pompon. Mel. ubi fup. 
(32) Plin. ubi fup. p. 164. 
(33) Spoil. Mifc . Erudit. Antiq. Chrift. Cellar. Netit. Orb. 
Antiq. p. 655, 656. Cantabrigiae, 1703. 
(34) Joh. Qu intin. in Dcfcript . Mclit, & Burch. Niderftcd. 
ubi lup. p. 33, 36. 
manner 
