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Nobody really knows for sure. You can surf the Web and find all kind of stories depending on who wrote them. It's not because he is called a Maltese that he comes from Malta.
This is taken from the french standard of the Maltese called Bichon Maltais in France :
Maltais or Maltese comes from a semitic term "màlat", who means refuge or port. This semitic root can be found in a number of coastal areas, ex. in the name of the adriatic isle of Méléda, the sicilian town of Melita and of course also in the isle of Malta. The ancestors of those dogs lived in harbours and coastal towns of central Méditerranée where they were fighting the mices and rats that proliferated in the harbour warehouses and in the bilge of ships. In the nomenclature of existing dogs of the time, Aristote makes a place for a breed of small dogs to which he attributes the name "canes malitenses".
This is from the german standard :
His origins go back to the Romans and before Christ. But you have to understand that those dogs were not as elegant as they are today. The stories always talk about small white dogs, but in effect they were small dogs that looked like little Bichon. So in retrospect, we can say that small long haired dogs existed already in old Greece in the upper class. At the time of the Romans too, small white dogs were known and loved. The way the Maltese looks today, is with certainty, due to the English Maltese breeders of the 19th and 20 centuries.
This is taken from the french standard of the Maltese called Bichon Maltais in France :
Maltais or Maltese comes from a semitic term "màlat", who means refuge or port. This semitic root can be found in a number of coastal areas, ex. in the name of the adriatic isle of Méléda, the sicilian town of Melita and of course also in the isle of Malta. The ancestors of those dogs lived in harbours and coastal towns of central Méditerranée where they were fighting the mices and rats that proliferated in the harbour warehouses and in the bilge of ships. In the nomenclature of existing dogs of the time, Aristote makes a place for a breed of small dogs to which he attributes the name "canes malitenses".
This is from the german standard :
His origins go back to the Romans and before Christ. But you have to understand that those dogs were not as elegant as they are today. The stories always talk about small white dogs, but in effect they were small dogs that looked like little Bichon. So in retrospect, we can say that small long haired dogs existed already in old Greece in the upper class. At the time of the Romans too, small white dogs were known and loved. The way the Maltese looks today, is with certainty, due to the English Maltese breeders of the 19th and 20 centuries.
