Cyrene Travel Guide

Cyrene (Κυρήνη) was an ancient Greek colony in present-day Libya, the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name 'Cyrenaica' that it has retained to modern times. It lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar uplands. It was named after a spring, Kyre, which the Greeks consecrated to Apollo.
Cyrene was founded as a colony of the Greeks of Thera (modern Santorini), traditionally led by Battus I, in 630 BC, ten miles from its port, Apollonia (Marsa Sousa). Details concerning the founding of the city are contained in Book IV of the Histories of Herodotus. It promptly became the chief town of ancient Libya, between Egypt and Carthage (Cyrenaica), kept up commercial relations with all the Greek cities, and reached the height of its prosperity under its own kings in the 5th century BC. Soon after 460 BC it became a republic; after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) it passed to the Ptolemies and fell into decay.
Cyrenaica became part of the empire controlled by the Ptolemaic dynasty from Alexandria in Egypt and later passed to the Roman empire. Cyrene was the birthplace of Eratosthenes and there are a number of philosophers associated with the city including Callimachus, Carneades, Aristippus and Arete, and Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais in the 4th century CE.
The inhabitants of Cyrene at the time of Sulla (c. 85 BC) were divided into four classes: citizens, farmers, resident aliens, and Jews, who formed a restless minority. The ruler of the town, Apion bequeathed it to the Romans, but it kept its self-government. In 74 BC Cyrene was created a Roman province; but, whereas under the Ptolemies the Jewish inhabitants had enjoyed equal rights, they now found themselves increasingly oppressed by the now autonomous and much larger Greek population. Tensions came to a head in the insurrection of the Jews of Cyrene under Vespasian (73) and especially Trajan (117). This revolt was quelled by Marcius Turbo, but not before huge numbers of people had been killed (Cassius Dio, lxviii. 32). According to Eusebius the outbreak of violence left Libya depopulated to such an extent that a few years later new colonies had to be established there just to maintain the viability of continued settlement. (...) more....

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