Talk:Roman Libya

Untitled

This article is part of the series related to the History of Libya, a north african country.

split

An article about "Roman Libya" is like one about "Roman Germania" (instead of the articles about the actual Roman provinces in Germania, Germania Superior and Germania Inferior, viz. in the Libyan case Libya Inferior and Libya Superior), or worse, if "Libya" is not supposed to mean "Africa" but "the territory of modern Libya", the article topic is bound to generate confusion. It would be an article about "Roman Germany" which does not focus on the territory of Germania as it was understood at the time, but eclectically on the territory of the modern-day territory of Germany as it has stood since 1945. Which would be pointless. Like, say, an article about "Roman Britain" that does not discuss the territory of Roman Britannia but instead the territory of the UK of today ("Roman Northern Ireland"?) --dab (𒁳) 10:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I find illogical the split, because the article is related to the series History of Libya and deals mainly with the areas of this modern country. And it is clearly said this in the article; even that Diocletian created in Cyrenaica an Upper & Lower Libya. It would be like to split the article Roman Britain in "Roman Kent", "Roman Yorkshire", "Roman London", "Roman Cornwall", etc.....--LegaleBDA (talk) 14:38, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

sorry, but this doesn't make any sense. There was no "Roman Libya" in the same sense there was a Roman Britain. Britain (Britannia) was a Roman province. "Libya" was not. An article "Roman Libya" is like an article "Roman Germany". So Diocletian created provinces Libya Inferior and Libya Superior. This probably explains why these pages exist (as redirects, neither of which points here). These are like Germania Inferior and Germania Superior. Note how we still don't have "Roman Germany". The Germania article corresponds to the Ancient Libya one. --dab (𒁳) 08:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I am against the split, for the same reasons of user LegaleBDA. All of us understand that it is related to an 'historical list' of articles, about the History of the actual country called Libya.--Qyork (talk) 20:01, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I think most of us agree that the tag for split must be erased.--Qyork (talk) 21:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

for some reason everyone forgets the tsunami

IT was the event that changed everything. There was no "gradual decline" there was a WHAM!!!!! then a feable recovery before the Arabs got there.04:17, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Re-Recommending a Split

I am wondering if this article is worth keeping as a separate article. The reasoning of Dbachmann in the above section (Split) is entirely sufficient in explaining why, and it is of note that no other modern country seems to get this treatment of getting an article dedicated spuriously to listing the various provinces into which parts of it (not even the whole!) were divided by the Romans. The reasoning provided by the dissenters appears to completely miss the primary concern --- and the lack of any other equivalent articles for other countries under Roman dominion (where is the article on Roman Germany, which lists every haphazard division by the ancient Romans of lands in the modern Federal Republic of Germany into ancient provinces for their own ends??? Oh, it doesn't exist: the term "Roman Germany" instead automatically redirects to Germania Superior, a specific province which was actually identifiable!) further betrays the validity of Dbachmann's point.

Notably, we already have articles on:

• Ancient Libya - For the ancient treatment of the term "Libya"
• Crete and Cyrenaica - for the historical province of the same name.
• Cyrenaica - for the historical province of the same name, and which currently takes the name Libya Superior.
• Marmarica - for the historical region/"province of the same name, and which currently takes the name Libya Inferior.
• Tripolitania (Roman province) - for the parts of Libya which were subsumed under the province of Tripolitania
• Ottoman Tripolitania - for the Ottoman use of the term.
• Tripolitania - For literally every use of "Tripolitania" as a provincial name.
• Roman Africa - for the various areas of Tunisia and Libya which came under the rule of various provinces in the Roman empire using the name "Africa" (Africa Vetus, Africa Nova, Africa Proconsularis, etc).

In this mess of articles, I truly ask what the point of this one existing is, except to awkwardly patch together things already detailed in these other articles or better assigned to them?

HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 05:45, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Oppose Subject is reasonably coherent, & usefully kept together. Roman Britain was a single province (in fact more like "Roman England"), but then sub-divided into four. Johnbod (talk) 18:14, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Disagree, Factual: Roman Britain was not equivalent to "Roman England", given it consumed all of modern Wales (a fact which alone immediately disqualifies the term from being treated as exactly equivalent to "Roman England", lest you believe Wales and England are not separate countries...); it also contained a small part of Scotland, which makes the division literally incorrect in either case. Yet, we do not have "Roman Wales" and "Roman Scotland" as primary namespace articles. Thus, this claim still fails to address the central concern, which is that, no other modern country seems to get this treatment of getting a[ primary namespace] article dedicated spuriously to listing the various provinces into which parts of it (not even the whole!) were divided by the Romans."

Disagree, Argumentative Consistency: The mere fact that Roman Britain existed as a single province at some point makes it incomparable to Roman Libya, which never existed as a single province and was always divided. Numerous temporary and liquidated provinces of the Roman empire have pages, including Crete and Cyrenaica, Africa (Roman province), Judea (Roman province), Roman Syria (n.b.: specifically about provincial Syria and not the modern country), and most of the Anatolian provinces which were organized during the Byzantine period. Roman Britain having such an article is entirely consistent with said practice, and arguably says nothing of whether or not Roman Libya is warranted—note also that each of the subsequent sub-provinces also has an article.

Elaboration, Inconsistent Titling: To elaborate on the original point, I observe that we do not have "Roman France", it leads to Roman Gaul; we do not have "Roman Spain" and "Roman Portugal", they lead to Hispania and Roman Lusitania; we do not have Roman Tunisia, it leads to Africa (Roman province); we do not have Roman Luxembourg or Roman Algeria or Roman Morocco or Roman Sudan or Roman Saudi Arabia, Roman Jordan, etc., we have articles referring to the provinces which existed in (or surrounding) those countries... the closest we get to such articles are "X in the Roman era", where X is the name of the country. Based on this, article Roman Libya would seem to me a violation of WP:CONPRIME. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 14:31, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Oh dear, you seem to be using AI for this! Please explain to your AI assistant that all of Hadrian's Wall is in England, and the Antonine Wall never seems to have functioned as a frontier. Roman control over most of Wales was very notional. But all this is beside the point, and I notice you have not addressed my arguments. Johnbod (talk) 17:32, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I directly replied to what you said.

re, Roman Britain was essentially "Roman England": no, it was not. Roman Britain is recognized by historians as having been a province including Wales and part of Scotland. We do not have "Roman Wales" articles, nor "Roman Scotland" articles, as primary name-spaces; they redirect to Wales in the Roman era and Scotland in the Roman era. I re-iterate that no other modern country gets this treatment.

re, "Roman Britain was a single province, but was then sub-divided into four: so, it was an actual province then. Roman Libya was not an actual province: Tripolitania (Roman province), Cyrenaica, and Marmarica were provinces.

As to your follow-up claims:

1. Roman control of Wales being "notional" is not then Roman provincial Britain having included Wales; further, it seems the article Wales in the Roman era contains enough information to directly contradict your assertion in either case, as there was a thorough Roman-Welsh society for some period. Claim rejected on factual grounds, and relevance grounds ("Roman Britain" still contained Wales, thus the "notionality" of that control is not relevant).
2. Roman control in Scotland not having been extensive is irrelevant to the point. Romans seem to have extended their authority into areas in modern Scotland beneath and beyond the Antonine Wall at various points; Roman authority was thus as reasonably established as we can support it having been in most of Libya, the interior of which was spuriously campaigned in (see: Romans in sub-Saharan Africa and Garamantes, which is oft. discussed in conversation on "Roman Libya". Even if I grant you this, however, your statement would still not be a thorough response to the claim made: there are numerous other areas mentioned, which you did not reply to. Thus, claim rejected on grounds of consistency (Roman authority in Scotland was probably similar to control in various parts of "Libya" which are related to "Roman Libya" according to the classification being defended; if that is the case, Roman Scotland must be equivalently defensible, yet it is not agreed to), as well as on grounds of insufficiency (even granting the claim, it does not respond to numerous other examples).

re, Your snide remarks: Do not insult my intelligence by acting as though I am not capable of spending a bit of time writing something well-put and well-ordered sans the use of some tool. Feel free to go through my edit history if you somehow do not think I am capable of writing high-school level English, or of doing my own research, or of contributing useful information on various topics in history. But if you're inclined to speak to me, either respond to the claims presented, or don't do so. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 18:14, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Final note, if you're somehow confused as to how I bold / format my text: Wikipedia uses Wiki markup. I'm sure there's a thread somewhere on the site that covers it. If you want to bold text, surround it with three ticks as demonstrated:

' ' ' text ' ' ' (remove spaces).

If you want to italicize text:

' ' text ' '

If you want to learn how to format your text nicely, think about your posts and reflect on what you write before putting it down. You can also feel free to edit and delete the things you say after publishing text, but try to plan ahead well so you don't follow in my ways and wind up with 5 edits for a single change (my edit count surely has experienced serious inflation haha).

I hope this helps :) Have fun on Wikipedia. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 18:19, 11 August 2026 (UTC)