v49_0342 - CIRENAICA - CIRENE Demi-unité, (PB, Æ 19)

CYRENAICA - CYRENE

(4th - 3rd century BC)

Cyrene, a port city located in Cyrenaica was founded by Dorian settlers from the island of Thera around 630 BC.. -VS. They had at their head Battus, mythical ancestor of the Battids who reigned two centuries over Cyrene. The city was famous for the cultivation and harvesting of silphium, one of the most sought after medicinal plants of antiquity, now extinct. The city, independent, was in the Egyptian orbit. When Alexander captured Egypt in 332/331 BC. -VS. , he signed a peace treaty with Cyrene guaranteeing him relative autonomy. After the death of the conqueror, the region of Cyrene fell under Lagide rule. In 322 BC. -VS. , the Cyreneans appealed to Ptolemy to rid them of the tyrant Tibron. The satrap sent his general Ophellas who conquered the country, put the tyrant to death and installed himself as a strategist in Cyrene. Ophellas was in turn overthrown in 313 BC.. -VS. Ptolemy recovered Cyrene in 308 BC. -VS. and settled there his son-in-law Magas (308-277 AC. ) Magas went into revolt against Ptolemy II, his half-brother between 277 and 261 BC. -VS. After the death of Ptolemy Apion in 96 BC. -C, Cyrenaica became a Roman province in 74 BC. -VS.