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 by their ancestors are still found in the Awjila language of the oasis of Awjila. The ancient Berbers founded a number of cities and settlements, both on the coast and in the inland oases. Egyptian records mention that, during the New Kingdom of Egypt (thirteenth century BC), the Libu and Meshwesh tribes of Cyrenaica made frequent incursions into Egypt. Cyrenaica was colonized by the Greeks beginning in the 7th century BC, when it was known as Kyrenaika. The first and most important colony was that of Cyrene, established in about 631 BC by colonists from the Greek island of Thera,