The Roman and Byzantine Limes in Cyrenaica

Abstract

Although Cyrenaica ranked, under the earlier Empire, as a senatorial province, it was too exposed to barbarian attack to be left undefended; and there is ample evidence that it had its own garrison—probably a small one—from the first century A.D. onwards. This garrison was evidently inadequate to prevent the outbreak of the Jewish Revolt of A.D. 115, and may consequently have been strengthened; but it was the crisis of the mid-third century that showed all too clearly the insecurity of the isolated Cyrenaican plateau. The Marmaric tribes invaded the province, and Cyrene itself seems to have been overwhelmed. The Diocletianic reforms resulted in the creation of a new ‘middle-eastern’ command under the Dux Aegypti Thebaidos utrarumque Libyarum, but the loss of the chapter of the Notitia Dignitatum enumerating the units stationed in the two Libyas makes it difficult to reconstruct the military organization of these provinces at the end of the fourth century. The works of Synesius help to fill the lacuna and at the same time provide a vivid picture of life in an invaded area.