| Province of Crete and Cyrenaica | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Province of theRoman Empire | |||||||||||
| 67 BC–c. 297 AD | |||||||||||
.svg) Roman province of Creta et Cyrenae highlighted. | |||||||||||
| Capital | Gortyna | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Established | 67 BC | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | c. 297 AD | ||||||||||
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| Today part of |  Greece Libya | ||||||||||
Crete and Cyrenaica (Latin:Creta et Cyrenaica,Koinē Greek:Κρήτη καὶ Κυρηναϊκή,romanized: Krḗtē kaì Kyrēnaïkḗ) was asenatorial province of theRoman Republic and later theRoman Empire, established in 67 BC, which included the island ofCrete and the region ofCyrenaica in modern-dayLibya. These areas were settled by Greek colonists from the eighth to sixth centuries BC. AfterAlexander the Great's death, his short-lived empire was partitioned between his generals during theWars of the Diadochi. Cyrenaica ended up underEgyptian rule, except for Crete, which remained independent.
Ptolemy Apion, the last king of theHellenisticKingdom of Cyrenaica left his kingdom to the Roman Republic when he died childless in 96 BC.[1] Rome readily accepted this inheritance from Ptolemy Apion but preferred to leave the administration to local rulers, rather than enforcing direct control. However, by the 70s BC, civil uprisings by Jewish settlers began to destabilise the province and theSenate was forced to take action. In 74 BC, they sent a low level official, the quaestorCornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, to officially annex Cyrenaica as a Roman province and restore order. That the Senate sent such a low-ranking official indicates the political difficulty the Republic had in governing its growing empire, as well as indicating the ease with which Cyrenaica was willing to submit to Roman governance and the stability it brought.[2]
Marcus Antonius Creticus attackedCrete in 71 BC and was repelled. Then in 69 BC, Rome commissionedQuintus Caecilius Metellus and, following a ferocious three-year campaign, Crete was conquered for Rome in 66 BC, Metellus earning theagnomen "Creticus" as an honour for his conquest and subjugation of Crete.[3]
In 67 BC, Crete and Cyrenaica were combined into a single province with its capital atGortyn in Crete.[4] In 117 AD, aJewish revolt erupted in Cyrenaica, resulting in the death of two hundred and twenty thousand people.[5] In 298 AD,Diocletian, because of geographic inconvenience, separated theprovince of Crete fromCyrenaica, which in turn was divided between Libya Superior or Libya Pentapolis, withCyrene as its capital, and Libya Inferior or Libya Sicca, withParaetonium as its capital.[3][6]
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| Geographic | |
35°03′44″N24°56′49″E / 35.0621°N 24.9470°E /35.0621; 24.9470
