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Barca, one of the cities of the Pentapolis, the confederation of five Greek cities established in Libya, was located at the site of the current city of El-Marj. The city was founded in an area that was previously inhabited by indigenous Libyan tribes, and from the beginning, its population was both Greek and Libyan. The mingling between those two people groups was more pronounced in Barca that anywhere else in Cyrenaica. The indigenous elite was integrated into the city’s administration, as illustrated by the example of governor Alazir. Sadly, nothing is left today of the ancient city of Barca.
The area around Barca was originally inhabited by the Libyan Amazigh Barraci tribe. After the foundation of Cyrene, in 631 BCE, the Greek colonists allied themselves with the indigenous tribes.
During the reign of King Arcesilaus II of Cyrene (560-550), his adviser Learchus (who, according to certain sources, was also his brother) rebelled against him. Learchus made an alliance with the Amazigh tribes, depriving the King of precious allies. Together, Greeks and Amazighs founded the city of Barca. They then declared war against Cyrene. They were victorious, and Learchus took the throne of Cyrene, but he was quickly killed.
A few decades later, King Arcesilaus III of Cyrene (530-515), fearing an uprising against him in Cyrene, fled to Barca. Arcesilaus III had family links with the Amazigh of the city: Alazir, the governor of Barca, who was from an Amazigh tribe, was the father of his wife. One day, on the market place in Barca, he was recognized by a group of Cyrenean exiles, who killed him together with Alazir.
At this time, Egypt was under Persian occupation since 525. After Arcesilaus III died, his mother Pheretima called on the Persian governor of Egypt to avenge him, claiming that he was killed because of his loyalty to the Persians. The Persian army besieged Barca and deported its population, and then entered Cyrene on Pheretima’s invitation: it was the beginning of the Persian domination of Cyrenaica.
Emperor Darius I or Persia settled part of the Barcan captives in a village in Bactria (Central Asia, modern-day Afghanistan). This community still existed in the time of the Greek historian Herodotus, one century later.
In 462, the same year that King Arcesilaus IV of Cyrene won the chariot race at the Pythian Games with a team of Libyan horses, Amnesias, an athlete from Barca, won the wrestling competition. Amnesias, who was a shepherd, is famous for training by wrestling against a bull while keeping his flocks. He took his bull with him to Delphi for the competition, and then toured Greece with it. (Source)
Barca prospered a lot during the Persian occupation. Around the end of the 5th Century, it had apparently become the largest city in Cyrenaica, before Cyrene.
In 332, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. The Greeks of Cyrenaica, happy to see a Greek king who aspired to unite all Greeks, submitted to him. Barca, together with the rest of Cyrenaica, became part of Alexander the Great’s Empire.
During the civil war that followed Alexander the Great’s death, Barca, together with the neighboring city of Euhesperides (Benghazi), supported the revolt of the Spartan mercenary Thibron, who was seeking to conquer an Empire in Libya. Thibron was defeated by Cyrene, with the support of the Ptolemy of Egypt. Cyrenaica then became part of the Ptolemaic Empire.
Ptolemy III Euergetes built a new city, Ptolemais, on the site of the former port of Barca. The city, deprived of its access to the sea, started declining and soon ceased to be part of the Pentapolis.
Cyrenaica was the first region in North Africa to be reached by Christianity, and now has some of the best-preserved ruins of ancient Christian churches in North Africa. The first known Christian bishop of Barca was Zopyrus, who took part in the Council of Nicaea, in 325.
Barca still existed in the Roman and Byzantine era, but only as a small, unimportant town.
Barca was one of the first towns in Cyrenaica to be conquered by the Islamic Caliphate, in 643-644. The Muslims decided to make it their new provincial capital. Its name was Arabized as برقة (Barqa). With time, برقة became the Arabic name of the whole region previously known as Cyrenaica.
