Roman Empire
In the time of Julius Caesar the Romans united for the first time what later became Libya. Their legions dominated the North Africa area and brought five centuries of relative peace and progress to coastal Libya.
Roman influence was huge in Tripolitania, where the main city (Leptis Magna) was home to one of the most illustrious Roman Emperors, Septimius Severus.
In those five centuries of Roman domination the area around Oea, Sabratha and Leptis Magna enjoyed good agriculture and commerce, and was defended by the Limes Tripolitanus.
Cyrenaica, by contrast, was Greek before it was Roman. It was also known as Pentapolis, the "five cities" being Cyrene (near the village of Shahhat) with its port of Apollonia (Susa), Arsinoe (Taucheira), Berenice (Benghazi) and Barca (Marj). From the oldest and most famous of the Greek colonies the fertile coastal plain took the name of Cyrenaica.
The Legio III Augusta was in control of coastal Libya during the Roman Empire, and by the third century was made partially of Libyan natives. Romans, in order to defend coastal Libya, made war against the Garamantes (living in actual Fezzan) and made expeditions to the desert area south of Libya.
Read more about this topic: Military History Of Libya
Famous quotes related to roman empire:
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)