City
Bernicide
Benghazi (Barrington)
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Bernicide carries the name of a queen: Ptolemy the Third of Egypt founded the city and named it after his wife Berenice, and it soon eclipsed neighbouring Euhesperides, where some Greeks placed the mythical Garden of the Hesperides. The Roman writer Pliny still mentions a river and a sacred grove nearby where the gardens were said to lie, though he calls the Greek reports unreliable. The map marks the city, now Benghazi in Libya, with a pair of towers. It was home to a large Jewish community with its own officials, later became a bishop's seat, and the emperor Justinian refortified it and built baths there.