Postage stamps and postal history of Cyrenaica Postage stamps and postal history of Cyrenaica This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Cyrenaica, now part of Libya. Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya and also an ex-province or state ("muhafazah" or "wilayah") of the country (alongside Tripolitania and Fezzan) in the pre-1963 administrative system. What used to be Cyrenaica in the old system is now divided up into several "shabiyat" (see administrative divisions in Libya). In addition to the coastal region, "i.e." historical Cyrenaica, the former province, during the Kingdom and the Italian era extended to the south to include the
Greeks in Italy part of the Italian peninsula. The Romans called the area of Sicily and the foot of the boot of Italy "Magna Graecia" (Latin, "Greater Greece"), since it was so densely inhabited by Greeks. The ancient geographers differed on whether the term included Sicily or merely Apulia and Calabria — Strabo being the most prominent advocate of the wider definitions. During the Early Middle Ages, new waves of Greeks came to Magna Graecia from Greece and Asia Minor, as Southern Italy remained governed by the Eastern Roman Empire. Although most of the Greek inhabitants of Southern Italy became de-hellenized and no