MALATIA, less correctly Malat(yah, the ancient Melitene of Cappadocia, a town of Kurdish Armenia in the vilayet of Diarbekir, about 8 miles to the south-west of the Euphrates below the confluence of the Tokhma-su, and about half way between Baghdad and Constantinople, on a route which for ages has been one of the most important in that part of Asia. Asbuzi or Aspuzi, a place about 5 miles distant, which was formerly inhabited by the people of Malatia during the summer only, has become the permanent residence of a large part of the population (about 20,000, including both), but Malatia proper remains the administrative centre of the sanjak. The remains of the ancient town are much dilapidated....
In the time of Strabo (xii. 537) there was no town in the district of Melitene. Under Titus the place became the permanent station of the 12th legion; Trajan raised it to a city. Lying in a very fertile country at the crossing-point of important routes, it grew in size and importance, and was the capital of Armenia Minor or Secunda. Justinian, who completed the walls commenced by Anastasius, made it the capital of Armenia Tertia; it was then a very great place (Procop., De Aed. , iii. 4). The town was burnt by Chosroes on his retreat after his great defeat there in 577. Taken by the Saracens, retaken and destroyed by Constantine Copronymus, it was presently recovered to Islam, and rebuilt under Mansûr (757-58 A.D.). It again changed hands more than once, being reckoned among the frontier towns of Syria (lstakhry, p. 55, 62). At length the Greeks recovered it in 934, and Nicephorus II., finding the district much wasted, encouraged the Jacobites to settle in it, which they did in great numbers. A convent of the Virgin, and the great church which bears his name, were erected by the bishop Ignatius (Isaac the Runner). From this time Malatia continued. to be a great seat of the Jacobites, and it was the birthplace of their famous maphrian Barhebraeus (or Abuliaragius). At the commencement of the 11th century the town was said to number 60,000 fighting men (Assem., Bib. Or., ii. 149; comp. Barheb., Chr. Eccl., i. 411, 423). At the time of the first crusade, . the city, being hard pressed by the Turks under Ibn Danishmend, was relieved by Baldwin, after Bohemund had failed and lost his liberty in the attempt. But the Jacobites had no cause to love Byzantium, and the Greek governor Gabriel was so cruel and faithless that the townsmen were soon glad to open their gates to Ibn Danishmend (1102), and the city subsequently became part of the realm of Kilij Arslan, sultan of Iconium.
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