Crete and Cyrenaica 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 Republic when he died childless in 96 BCE. Rome readily accepted this inheritance from Ptolemy Apion but preferred to leave the administration to local rulers, rather than enforcing direct control. However, by the 70s BCE, civil uprisings by Jewish settlers began to destabilise the province and the Senate was forced
Greeks in Malta Greeks in Malta Greeks (, "Ellines"; ) have a long presence in Malta, which may lead back to ancient times. The archipelago was intensely Hellenized beginning in the 3rd century BC, a process which intertwined with the Christianization of Malta after the 1st century AD. The Byzantine presence was overturned by the Arab conquest of 870, and the surviving Greek community was Islamified. Maltese Christianity of the Byzantine Rite was only preserved in some parts of the country, being especially important in Gozo. These groups formed the basis for a local branch of the Orthodox Church, revived following Norman conquest