Crete and Cyrenaica Crete and Cyrenaica Crete and Cyrenaica () was a senatorial province of the Roman Empire, established in 67 BCE. It comprised the island of Crete and the region of Cyrenaica in present-day Libya. Ptolemy Apion, the last king of the Hellenistic Kingdom of Cyrenaica left his kingdom to the Roman Republic when he died childless in 96 BCE. Rome readily accepted this inheritance from Ptolemy Apion but preferred to leave the administration to local rulers, rather than enforcing direct control. However, by the 70s BCE, civil uprisings by Jewish settlers began to destabilise the province and the Senate was forced
Name of Greece "Graecia" (Greek: ), literally meaning 'the land of the Greeks', which was used by Ancient Romans to denote the area of modern-day Greece. Similarly, the Latin name of the nation was "Graeci", which is the origin of the English name "Greeks". Those names, in turn, trace their origin from "Graecus", the Latin adaptation of the Greek name Γραικός (pl. ), which means 'Greek', but its etymology remains uncertain. It is unclear why the Romans called the country "Graecia" and its people "Graeci", but the Greeks called their land "Hellas" and themselves "Hellenes". Several speculations have been made. William Smith notes