Ptolemais, Cyrenaica Ptolemais, Cyrenaica Ptolemais (Greek: Πτολεμαΐς) was one of the five cities that formed the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica, the others being Cyrene, Euesperides (later Berenice, and now Benghazi), Tauchira/Teuchira (later Arsinoe, and now Tocra), and Apollonia (now Susa). Its ruins are at a small village in modern Libya called Tolmeita ("Arabic" طلميتة), after the ancient name. The city was founded by and named after one of the rulers of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, probably Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–221 BC). What had been a small Greek settlement of unknown name that originated in the late 7th century BC and that acted as a
Cyrenaica of Nicaea in 325. The subscriptions at Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) give the names of two other bishops, Zenobius and Theodorus. Although it retained the title "Pentapolis", the ecclesiastic province actually included all of the Cyrenaica, not just the five cities. Pentapolis is still included in the title of Popes of the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Cyrenaica was conquered by Muslim Arabs during the tenure of the second caliph, Omer Bin Khattab, in 643/44, and became known as Barqah after its provincial capital, the ancient city of Barce. After the breakdown of the