Cyrenaica in 218 B.C.

Cyrenaica — Ptolemaic Egypt › The Overseas Empire.

The Greek Pentapolis of Libya — Cyrene, Ptolemais, Berenice, Apollonia and Taucheira — a rich, old and often semi-autonomous land to the west. Famed for its horses, grain and the precious silphium plant, it had a memory of independence under Magas, half-brother of Ptolemy II, who ruled it almost as a king. By 218 it is firmly back under the crown, but proud and restive, governed from Cyrene as a province of its own.