A traditional story in Aesop's Fables contrasts the spoiling of a Maltese by his owner, compared to life of the toilsome neglect suffered by the master's ass. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, Aristotle's contemporary, according to the testimony of Diogenes Laertius, referred to himself as a 'Maltese dog' (κύων.
The word 'Melita' in this adjectival form, attested in Aristotle, refers to the island of Malta, according to Busuttil. In is unusual smallness it was variously likened to martens (ἴκτις/ iktis) or pangolins. In Greece in the classical period a variety of diminutive dog (νανούδιον/ nanoúdion -'dwarf dog') was called a Μελιταῖον κυνίδιον ( Melitaion kunídion, 'small dog from Melita'). The uncertainty continues, but recent scholarship generally supports the identification with Malta. Ancient writers variously attribute its origin either to the island of Malta in the Mediterranean, called Melita in Latin, – a name which derives from the Carthaginian city of that name on the island, Melite – or to the Adriatic island of Mljet, near Corfu and off the Dalmatian coast of modern Croatia, also called Melita in Latin. Numerous references to these dogs are found in Ancient Greek and Roman literature. On one Attic amphora from about 500 BC, excavated at Vulci in the nineteenth century and now lost, an illustration of a small dog with a pointed muzzle is accompanied by the word μελιταῖε, 'melitaie'. Dogs of various sizes and shapes are depicted on vases and amphorae.
The old variety of Maltese appears to have been the most common or favourite pet, or certainly household dog, in antiquity.
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