Cyrenaica is named as such after the town of Cyrene. Because of this, it is easy to see how modern scholars and ancients alike consider Pentapolis, of which Cyrene is part, most often not as a province, but as a region of Cyrenaica.
It lies above the area of Garamantis, west of Egypt, and below the Sicillian sea to the northwest and the Cretan Sea, or Sea of Crete, to the northeast.
Simon of Cyrene is said to have carried the cross of Jesus.
And they compel one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.
The Rufus is speculated to be the same as Rufus of Thebes, a bishop, numbered among the "seventy apostles" sent out by Christ in some Orthodox traditions of Christianity.
Cyrene had a large Jewish community, as 100.000 judean Jews had been forced to settle there during the reign of Ptolemy Soter (323-285 BC).
The Cyrenian Jews had a synagogue in Jerusalem, where they went for annual feasts.