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:
“The Roman Empire stood appalled:
It dropped the reins of peace and war
When that fierce virgin and her Star
Out of the fabulous darkness called.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The descendants of Holy Roman Empire monarchies became feeble-minded in the twentieth century, and after World War I had been done in by the democracies; some were kept on to entertain the tourists, like the one they have in England.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)