Crete and Cyrenaica in 66 BCE, Metellus earning the agnomen "Creticus" as an honour for his conquest and subjugation of Crete. In 67 BCE, Crete and Cyrenaica were combined into a single province with its capital at Gortyn in Crete. Because this arrangement was geographically inconvenient Diocletian divided the province in 298 AD. 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
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