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After the death of Ptolemy Apion, the last king of Cyrenaica, the region came under Roman control. It would be part of the Roman Empire, since its founding.
Context
During the Hellenistic era, from the death of Alexander the Great to the advent of the Roman Empire, Cyrenaica was under the influence of Ptolemaic Egypt. In 105, Ptolemy VIII Physcon established his son Ptolemy Apion as king of Cyrenaica. After Ptolemy Apion died without a heir in 96, his kingdom was bequeathed to the Roman Republic.
Early history
At the beginning, the Romans largely ignored this new territory.
In Cyrene, a tyrant named Nicocrates took over power, brutalizing the population. His wife Aretaphila, whom he had forced to marry him after killing her previous husband, conspired to assassinate him. Sadly, his brother Leander, who succeeded him, was just as tyrannical as him. Aretaphila then called on a Libyan prince to overthrow him. The Greek historian Plutarch mentions Aretaphila is his work On the virtue of women, as a model of virtuous women, for her aspiration to free her people from tyranny. There apparently was a cult in her honor among women of this time.
The Roman general Lucullus visited Cyrene in 87, suppressed the tyranny, and established a new Constitution. The first Roman governor was sent to Cyrene in 74. After the Roman annexation of Crete, in 67, Cyrenaica was integrated into the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica. The provincial capital was Gortyna, in Crete, but Cyrenaica enjoyed a large autonomy, with Cyrene as its main city.
As a Roman province
At the beginning of the Roman era, Cyrene enjoyed a new era of prosperity, with many new buildings built in the 1st Century. The other Cyrenaican cities also profited of this renewed prosperity.
Around the middle of the 1st Century, the Roman administration launched a vast campaign to recover public lands around Cyrene that were illegally occupied by private persons.
Cyrene, already having a large Jewish population since the Hellenistic era, also became a major Christian center. According to Christian tradition, Mark, the author of one of the Gospels, was originally from Cyrene and preached the Christian message here.
In 115-117, a major Jewish revolt in Cyrenaica killed over 200.000 people around the region. Cyrene was ransacked by the insurgents and almost all its buildings were destroyed. The city’s rebuilding took several decades.
In 131, Cyrene became a member of the Panhellenion, an alliance of Greek cities created by Roman Emperor Hadrian, who greatly admired old Greece. Other Cyrenaican Greek cities wanted to enter the Panhellenion, but Cyrene blocked their access.
By the end of the 2nd Century, the city was prospering again. Several palaces were built at this time, including the House of Jason Magnus, the most beautiful architectural of Roman Cyrene.
Cyrene was again declining in the 3rd Century. In 262, the city was destroyed by an earthquake, and then pillaged by Libyan nomads. The city was rebuilt, but never recovered to its past glory. The most influential city in Cyrenaica was now Ptolemais (Tolmeita).
In 365, another earthquake almost completely destroyed the five historical cities of the Pentapolis. Ptolemais, having been relatively spared by the earthquake, became the provincial capital.
The last influential Roman Cyrenaican figure was the Neoplatonic philosopher Synesius of Cyrene. Born in Balagrae (Al-Bayda) in 373, he grew up in Cyrene and studied philosophy in Alexandria, before becoming an emissary of Cyrenaica at the Emperor’s court. By the end of his life, he even became bishop of Ptolemais.
Ptolemais was destroyed by the Libyans in 411.
Cyrenaica was conquered by the Arabs in 643. The city of Cyrene, already largely deserted, was abandoned soon after.
