Libya Greek cities were established in the area that became known as Cyrenaica. In 525 BC the Persian army of Cambyses II overran Cyrenaica, which for the next two centuries remained under Persian or Egyptian rule. Alexander the Great was greeted by the Greeks when he entered Cyrenaica in 331 BC, and Eastern Libya again fell under the control of the Greeks, this time as part of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. After the fall of Carthage the Romans did not immediately occupy Tripolitania (the region around Tripoli), but left it instead under control of the kings of Numidia, until the coastal cities
Names of the Greeks (//, "Romans") the latter of which was used since virtually all Greeks were Roman citizens after 212 CE. The term "Hellene" became applied to the followers of the polytheistic ("pagan") religion after the establishment of Christianity by Theodosius I. Most European languages, as well as other languages that have borrowed the name from one of them, use names for Greece that come from the Latin "Graecia" and "Graecus", the name the Romans used for the Greeks, itself from the Greek : In languages of Middle East and South and Central Asia, the common root is "yun" or "ywn". It is