Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/751

 CTRENAIOA have any dear acootuit, was effected bj Battus (^DicL of Biog. #. r.), who led a colony from the island of Thera, and first established himself on the island of Platea at the E. extremity of the district, and afterwards bnilt Cyrenb (b.c. 631). The dynasty, which he there foonded, governed the oonntiy daring 8 reigns, thoagh with comparatively little power over some of the other Greek cities. Ctf these the earliest were Tkuchsira and Hesperides, then Barca, a colony from Cyrene; and these, with Gyrene itself and its port Atollonia, formed the original Lybian Pentapolis. The comparative inde- pendence of Barca, and the injuiy inflicted on the coontry by the Persian invasion nnder Cambyses, diminished the power of the later kings of Cyrene, and at last the dynasty was overthrown, and a re- pnblic established aboat the middle of the 5th cen- tury B.G. [Otrene]. When Alexander invaded Egypt the Cyrenaeans made an alliance with him (Died. xvii. 49 ; Cnrt. iv. 7). The country was made robject to Egjqpt by Ptolemy the son of Lagos, b. c. 321. (Diod. xviii. 19—21, xx. 40; Justin, xiii. 6.) It appears to have floarished nnder the Ptolemies, who pnrsaed their nsoal policy of raising new cities at the expense of the ancient ones, or restoring the latter nnder new names. Thus Hesperides became Berenice, Tencheira was called Arsinoe, Barca was en- tirely eclipsed by its port which was raised into a ci^ under the name of Ptolemab, and Cyrene began to decay in consequence of the &voars coofened upon its port Apollonia. After these changes, the term Pentapolis, which became the common name of the country, refers to the five cities of Cyrene, Apollonia, PtolemaTs, Anunog, and Berenice. The last king of the Egyptian dynasty, Apion, an illegi- timate son of Ptolemy Physcon (on whose death in II. c. 1 17, he had obtained the government), left the country to the Romans by his testament^ in the year b. c. 95, according to Livy, though Appian gives a later date, apparently through a concision with the time of its erection into a Roman province. (Lit. Epit Ixx.; Appian. B. C. i. Ill, MUhr, 121 ; Justin, xxxix. 5 ; Eutrop. vi. 1 1 ; Sext. Ruf. 13.) At first the Romans granted the cities their freedom, and bestowed upon them the former royal domain, only eoEacting a tribute (Cic. de Leg. Agr. ii. 19); but quarrels soon broke out between the di£ferent states; imd, after Lucullus had made, by order of Sulla, a ▼ain attempt, real or affected, to reconcOe them (Plut. LuculL 2; Joseph. Antiq. xiv. 7. § 2), the Romans applied their usual last remedy, and re- duced the country to a province, under tJie name of Cyrenaica (probably in b. c. 75), which was united with Crete, on the conquest of that island by Q. Metellus Creticus, b. c. 67 [Ckkta]. In the di- vision of the provinces under Augustus, the united province, under the name of Crsta-Cyrene, Creta et Cyrene, or Creta simply, was constituted a senatorial province, under the government of a propraetor, with the titk of proconsul, who had a l^atus, and one if not two quaestars^ (Orelli, Ifucr. Nob. 3658, 3659; Bdckh, Corp, Inscr, Cfraeo. Nos. 2588, 3532, 8548; Gruter, p. 415, no. 5, p. 471, no. 6; Eckhel, -vol. iv. p. 126; Tac Awn. iii. 88, 70 ; Strab. xvii. pu 840; Senec. Controv, iv. 27; Suet. Vetp, 2; JMarquardt, Becker's Rom, Alterth.roL iii. pt 1, p. S23.) Under Coostantine, Crete and Cyrenaica wore made separate provinces; the latter was called Xibya Superior, and was placed under Uie govern- ment of a praeses. (Booking, NotiL Dign, vol. i p. 137 ; Marquardt, I, c) It should be observed CTBEKAIGA. 783 that, nnler the Romans, the K boundary of the pro* vince, which divided it from Marmarica, was formed by an imaginary Ime drawn southwards from AxYX.18, a town somewhat to the W. of the Cherso- nesus^hgna. The decline of the country in prosperity may be dated chiefly from the reign of Trajan, when the Jews, large numbers of whom had settled there under the Ptolemies (Joseph. Ani. Jud. xiv. 7, c. Apion, ii. 4; Act, Apott, ii. 10), rose in insurrection, mas- sacred 220,000 Romans and Cyrenaeans, and were put down with great difficulty and much sUughter. (Dion Cass. Ixviii. 32.) The loss of population during these bloody conflicts, and the increasing weakness of the whole empire, left the province an easy prey to the Libyan barbarians, whose attacks were aided by the ravages of locusts, plagues, and earthquakes. The sufferings of the Pentapolis from these causes at the beginning of the 5th century are pathetically described by Synesius, the bishop of PtolemaTs, in an extant oration, and in various pas- sages of his letters {CaUutasit ^.; EpUt. 57, 78, 125 ; de Regno, p. 2), and at a later period by Pro- copius (^AeiUf, vi. 2). In A.D. 616, the Persian Chosroes overthrew the remains of the Greek colonies so utterly, as to leave only the gleanings of the harvest of destruction to the Arab conquerors, who finally overran the country in a. d. 647. (Gibbon, vol. viii. p. 227, vol. ix. p. 444, foil., ed. Milman.) For the purposes of descriptive geography, the Cyrenaio coast must be divided into two parts at the promontory called Borbum {Ras Tmfonas), S. of which, along the E. shore of the Syrtis Major, were numerous small and unimportant places, whose positions are very difficult to determine (Ptol. iv. 4^ (aft. Berenice: Benghazi), upon the little stream called Lathon, the only river in the country, which took its rise in the sand-hills called Hercuus Arbnae, and near it the little lake called Triton, w Lacus Hesperidum, which s/me>to), originally the port of Barca, but under the Ptolemies the chi^ of the Five Cities: Barca itself lay about 12 miles inland: the next important position on the coast is the promontory and village of Phycus (^Rae Sem or Rat-td-Rasat), the N.-most headland of the part of tiie African coast E. of the Lesser Syrtis; tlien Apollonia (^Afarea Soma), the former port of Ctreme, which lies inland, about 8 miles from the coast, SE. of Phycus and SW. of Apollonia. Further to the E. was the port called Naustathmds {Marttk- ed-HakU, or Al Natroun), then the promontory Zkphyrium, then Darnis (Z>ema), Axtlis, and the CHERSomEsus Magna {Ra$-al-Tgn), where the coast formed a bay {G. of Bomba), in which lay the island of Platea (Bomba), the first landing- place of the colonists from Thera. Another littie island off the shore near Pr. Zephyrium was called Laea or the Island of Aphrodite (Aoid ^ ^KpfnAinis vifffos, PtoL iv. 4. § 15: Al Hiera), Ptolemy (§§ 1 1 — 13) mentions a hu^e number of places in the interior, most of them mere villages, and none apparentiy of any oonsequenoe, except Barca and Cyrene. Of the hills which run parallel to the coast, those along the E. shore of the Syrtis Msjot were called Hebculis Arenas ('HpoirAJovf eiWs), SW. of which were the Velpi }L (rb. Odthxa 6fni), and
 * 3; STRTEs).N.of this promontory layHE8i>BRiDES