Ancient Libya
Greek and Roman geographers placed the dividing line between Libya and Asia at the Nile because the entire region south of the mediterranean and west of the nile was homogeneous linguistically and Berber language was used all across north africa as far as the Atlantic coast[2] as well as racially by the Libyan people (Berbers)[3][4][5][6] The area was divided during Roman times into four main regions: Mauretania, Numidia, Africa Preconsularis and Libya which retained the original name.
In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been of Libyan origins and was therefore nicknamed Athene Tritogeneia ("born of Trito"),[7] from her birth in Lake Tritonis in North Africa (Modern day Algeria and Tunisia)[8][a][b][9] where she is considered native to the land,[10] in this version of the story she is the daughter of Poseidon and Tritonis a Libyan lake nymph.
[13] A sportsman in his youth, the prince took part in chariot races and the Panathenaic Games which only populations whom the greeks considered equal to them culturally and religiously were allowed to participate.
This coincides exactly with North Africans being well known for their worship of their sun god 'Tafukt' or commonly identified by the Greeks as Apollo[h] they were believed to inhabit a sunny, temperate, and divinely-blessed land.
In the Hellenistic period, the native Berbers were known collectively as Libyans to the Greco-Roman world,[18] a Greek term for the inhabitants of the Maghreb, they Identified the Massylii, the Masaessyli, the Gaetuli, The Phareusiens and the Mauri.
The Libyans were known far and wide as glorious warriors with extra-ordinary physical strength, they were efficient in battle and were an effective force when combined with an army, they were either employed as mercenaries or were made part of an army as was the case with Numidian Cavalry [j][19] in the ranks of both Roman Empire and Ancient Carthage, they completely overturned the tide of battle in Cannae for Hannibal and Battle of Zama for Scipio Africanus, Virgil speaks of the Libyans in this way: "The surrounding lands are Libyan, a race unbeatable in war" [20] After the Egyptians, the Greeks; Romans; and Byzantines mentioned various other tribes in Libya.
Writers such as Pliny the Elder, Diodorus Siculus, and Procopius also contributed to what is now primary source material on ancient Libya and the Libyans.
The Libu are attested since the Late Bronze Age as inhabiting the region (Egyptian R'bw, Punic: 𐤋𐤁𐤉 lby).
The oldest known documented references to the Libu date to Ramesses II and his successor Merneptah, pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, during the 13th century BC.
[23] Later, the name appeared in the Hebrew language, written in the Bible as Lehabim and Lubim, indicating the ethnic population and the geographic territory as well.
Classical Arabic literature called Libya Lubya, indicating a speculative territory west of Egypt.
This tribe may have ranged from the Atlantic Ocean to modern Libya, however, and was referred to by Corippius as Laguatan; he linked them with the Maures.
[clarification needed] Furthermore, Bates considered all the Libyan tribes to be a single civilization united under central Libu and Meshwesh control.
A reminder of the desertification of the area is provided by megalithic remains, which occur in great variety of form and in vast numbers in presently arid and uninhabitable wastelands:[citation needed] dolmens and circles akin to Stonehenge, cairns, underground cells excavated in rock, barrows topped with huge slabs, and step-pyramid-like mounds.
[citation needed] In the Terrgurt valley, Cowper says: "There had been originally no less than eighteen or twenty megalithic trilithons, in a line, each with its massive altar placed before it".
It was also known as Pentapolis, the "five cities" being Cyrene (near the village of Shahat) with its port of Apollonia (Marsa Susa), Arsinoe (Tocra), Berenice (Benghazi) and Barca (Merj).
Ancient Egyptian sources describe Libyan men with long hair, braided and bearded, neatly parted from different sides and decorated with feathers attached to leather bands around the crown of the head while wearing thin robes of antelope hide, dyed and printed, crossing the shoulder and coming down until mid calf length to make a robe.
[clarification needed] Ibn Khaldun and Herodotus distinguish the Libyans on the basis of their lifestyles rather than ethnic background, those practicing agriculture, and the others nomadic pastoralism.
[35] The Libyan tribes mentioned in these sources[clarification needed] were: "Adyrmachidae", "Giligamae", "Asbystae", "Marmaridae", "Auschisae", "Nasamones", "Macae", "Lotus-eaters (or Lotophagi)", "Garamantes", "Gaetulians", "Mauri", and "Luwatae", as well as many others.
