Viroconium Cornoviorum believed to have been a masculine given name meaning "werewolf". The term "Cornoviorum" distinguishes the site as the Viroconium "of the Cornovii", the Celtic tribe whose "civitas" the settlement became. The original site of the Cornovian capital (also thought to have been named *Uiroconion) was a hillfort on the Wrekin. The site at Wroxeter was strategically located near the end of the primary Watling Street Roman trunk road that ran across England from Dubris (Roman Dover). During the early years the site was a key frontier position lying on the bank of the Severn river whose valley penetrated deep into
Libya in the Roman era as a political state for the first time in history. After the final conquest and destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, northwestern Africa went under Roman rule and, shortly thereafter, the coastal area of what is now western Libya was established as a province under the name of Tripolitania with Leptis Magna capital and the major trading port in the region. In 96 BC Rome peacefully obtained Cyrenaica (left as inheritance by the king Ptolemy Apion) with the so-called sovereign "Pentapolis", formed by the cities of Cyrene (near the modern village of Shahat), its port of Apollonia, Arsinoe (Tocra), Berenice