Libya, an artificial construct only a few decades old, which at the first test fell apart into its previous incarnation as three distinct geographical regions. In the west it was, in Greek times, Tripolitania (from the Greek tripolis, “three cities,” which eventually merged and became Tripoli). The area to the east, centered on the city of Benghazi but stretching down to the Chad border, was known in both Greek and Roman times as Cyrenaica. Below these two, in what is now the far southwest of the country, is the region of Fezzan.
