Editing History of Libya (section)

==Phoenician and Greek Libya==
{{Further|Ancient Libya|Carthage|Phoenicia|Ancient Greece}}
[[File:Temple of Zeus - Cyrene.jpg|thumb|The temple of [[Zeus]] in the ancient Greek city of [[Cyrene, Libya|Cyrene]]. Libya has a number of World Heritage Sites from the ancient Greek era.]]
The Phoenicians were some of the first to establish coastal trading posts in Libya, when the merchants of [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]] (in present-day [[Lebanon]]) developed commercial relations with the various [[Berber people|Berber tribes]] and made treaties with them to ensure their cooperation in the exploitation of raw materials.<ref>Herodotus, (c.430 BCE), [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/herod-libya1.html "'The Histories', Book IV.42–43"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130409023843/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/herod-libya1.html |date=9 April 2013 }} ''Fordham University, New York''. Retrieved 18 July 2006.</ref><ref>Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, (1987), [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ly0014) "Tripolitania and the Phoenicians"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120922002706/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ly0014) |date=22 September 2012 }}, ''U.S. Library of Congress''. Retrieved 11 July 2006.</ref> By the 5th century BCE, the greatest of the Phoenician colonies, [[Carthage]], had extended its [[hegemony]] across much of North Africa, where a distinctive civilization, known as [[Punic]], came into being. Punic settlements on the Libyan coast included Oea (later Tripoli), Libdah (later [[Leptis Magna]]) and [[Sabratha]]. These cities were in an area that was later called [[Tripolis (region of Africa)|Tripolis]], or "Three Cities", from which Libya's modern capital Tripoli takes its name.

In 630 BCE, the [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greeks]] colonized Eastern Libya and founded the city of [[Cyrene, Libya|Cyrene]].<ref>Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, (1987), [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ly0015) "Cyrenaica and the Greeks"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120922002705/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ly0015) |date=22 September 2012 }}, ''U.S. Library of Congress''. Retrieved 11 July 2006.</ref> Within 200 years, four more important Greek cities were established in the area that became known as [[Cyrenaica]]: [[Barca (ancient city)|Barce]] (later [[Marj, Libya|Marj]]); Euhesperides (later Berenice, present-day [[Benghazi]]); [[Taucheira]] (later Arsinoe, present-day Taucheria); Balagrae (later Bayda and Beda Littoria under Italian occupation, present-day [[Bayda, Libya|Bayda]]); and [[Apollonia, Cyrenaica|Apollonia]] (later Susa), the port of Cyrene.<ref>[http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsAfrica/AfricaLibya.htm History of Libya] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128173621/http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsAfrica/AfricaLibya.htm |date=28 January 2013}}, The History Files. Retrieved 29 September 2011</ref> Together with Cyrene, they were known as the Pentapolis (Five Cities). Cyrene became one of the greatest intellectual and artistic centers of the Greek world, and was famous for its medical school, learned academies, and architecture. The Greeks of the Pentapolis resisted encroachments by the [[Ancient Egypt]]ians from the East, as well as by the Carthaginians from the West.