Libya
Libya(see map: The Roman empire (central and eastern provinces)), Greek name for the country of the Libyans, the indigenous peoples of North Africa. In Homer it was a pastoral land of great fecundity near Egypt (Odyssey 4. 85f.); later, most commonly the Greek colonial area of Cyrenaica (see Cyrene; colonization, Greek), but sometimes other parts, or the whole, of the North African coastal zone, even the whole continent of Africa. Roman informal usage followed Greek; formally it described the Egyptian administrative district west of Alexandria as the nome of Libya and two Diocletianic provinces (see provincia; Diocletian) as Libya Inferior (or Sicca), approximately from Alexandria to Darnis...
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