Western Desert (Egypt) as the "Libyan Desert", taking its name from Ancient Libya, which lay between the Nile and Cyrenaica. With the formation of the state of Libya, the term "Western Desert" has come to describe that part of the Sahara in Egypt. To the Ancient Greeks, the term Libya described the whole Saharan littoral west of the Nile to the Atlas mountains. During Roman times the term Libya was limited to Cyrenaica and the region between there and Egypt, which were organized as the provinces of Libya Superior and Libya Inferior. The term Libyan Desert then applied to the area to the
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