Berenice, Cyrenaica under the rule of the Orthodox Justinian I. Berenice, Cyrenaica Berenice, was an ancient Greek and Roman era city near Benghazi in today's Libya, named after Berenice II of Egypt. The city was located on a raised piece of land in what is now the Eastern Benghazi suburb of "Sebkha Es-Selmani" (Es-Selmani Marsh). Founded as a Greek Colony, the city became Roman when Cyrenaica became a Roman province by being bequeathed to Rome by Ptolemy Apion on his death in 96 BC. At first, the Romans gave Berenice and the other cities of the Pentapolis their freedom. By 78 BC
Names of the Greeks revolved around Roman imperial rights. Unable to deny that an emperor did exist in Constantinople, they sufficed in renouncing him as a successor of Roman heritage on the grounds that Greeks have nothing to do with the Roman legacy. In 865, Pope Nicholas I wrote to the Emperor Michael III: "You ceased to be called 'Emperor of the Romans' since the Romans, of whom you claim to be Emperor, are in fact according to you barbarians." Henceforth, the emperor in the East was known and referred to in the West as "Emperor of the Greeks" and their land as "Greek