City
Cyrenis Colonia
Ain Shahat, Grennah (Barrington)
Listen to the story
Cyrenis colonia was founded around 631 BC by Greek settlers from the island of Thera, beside a spring called Kyre that was sacred to Apollo. Under Roman rule the city also became a colony with the surname Flavia. Its ruins lie at Ain Shahat in Libya. The town grew rich on grain, oil, livestock and above all silphium, a plant that grew only in this region, and it was the home of the poet Callimachus and the scholar Eratosthenes. On the map, the short branch to neighbouring Apollonia has no road line at all. The copyist probably could not fit it in without running over the lettering.