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
Cyrenaica term "Pentapolis" continued to be used as a synonym for Cyrenaica. In the south, the Pentapolis faded into the Saharan tribal areas, including the pharaonic oracle of Ammonium. The region produced barley, wheat, olive oil, wine, figs, apples, wool, sheep, cattle and silphium, an herb that grew only in Cyrenaica and was regarded as a medicinal cure and aphrodisiac. Cyrene became one of the greatest intellectual and artistic centers of the Greek world, famous for its medical school, learned academies and architecture, which included some of the finest examples of the Hellenistic style. The Cyrenaics, a school of thinkers who