Military history of Libya

The military history of Libya covers the period from the ancient era to the modern age.

In ancient times, the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the armies of Alexander the Great and his Ptolemaic successors from Egypt, then Romans, Vandals, and local representatives of the Byzantine Empire ruled all or parts of Libya. The territory of modern Libya had separate histories until Roman times, as Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

In the time of Julius Caesar the Romans united for the first time what later became Libya. Their legions dominated the North Africa area and brought five centuries of relative peace and progress to coastal Libya.

Roman influence was huge in Tripolitania, where the main city (Leptis Magna) was home to one of the most illustrious Roman Emperors, Septimius Severus.

In those five centuries of Roman domination the area around Oea, Sabratha and Leptis Magna enjoyed good agriculture and commerce, and was defended by the Limes Tripolitanus.

Cyrenaica, by contrast, was Greek before it was Roman. It was also known as Pentapolis, the "five cities" being Cyrene (near the village of Shahhat) with its port of Apollonia (Susa), Arsinoe (Taucheira), Berenice (Benghazi) and Barca (Marj). From the oldest and most famous of the Greek colonies the fertile coastal plain took the name of Cyrenaica.

The Legio III Augusta was in control of coastal Libya during the Roman Empire, and by the third century was made partially of Libyan natives. Romans, in order to defend coastal Libya, made war against the Garamantes (living in actual Fezzan) and made expeditions to the desert area south of Libya.

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