Benghazi //[note 1] (Arabic: Banghz; Italian: Bengasi) is the second largest city in Libya, the capital of the Cyrenaica region (or ex-Province), and the former provisional capital of the National Transitional Council.[11] The wider metropolitan area (which includes the southern towns of Gimeenis and Suluq) is also a district of Libya. The port city is located on the Mediterranean Sea.
During the Kingdom era of Libya's history, Benghazi enjoyed a sort of joint-capital status (alongside Tripoli), possibly because the King used to reside in the nearby city of Bayda and the Senussis (royal family) in general were associated with Cyrenaica rather than Tripolitania. Benghazi continues to hold institutions and organizations normally associated with a national capital city. This creates a constant atmosphere of rivalry and sensitivities between Benghazi and Tripoli and by extension between the two regions (Cyrenaica and Tripolitania). The population of the entire district was 500,120 in the 1995 census and had increased to 670,797 in the 2006 census.[2]
On 15 February 2011,[12]an uprising against the government of Muammar Gaddafi occurred in the city.[13] On 21 February, the city was taken by Gaddafi opponents, who founded the National Transitional Council days later.[14] On 19 March it was the site of the turning point of the Libyan civil war, when the Libyan Army attempted to score a decisive victory against the NTC by attacking Benghazi, but was forced back by locals resistance and intervention from the French Air Force authorized by UNSC Resolution 1973 to protect civilians, allowing the rebellion to continue.
The Ancient Greek city that existed within the modern day boundaries of Benghazi was founded around 525 BC; at the time, it was called Euesperides. Euesperides was most likely founded by people from Cyrene or Barce, which was located on the edge of a lagoon which opened from the sea. At the time, this area may have been deep enough to receive small sailing vessels. The name was attributed to the fertility of the neighborhood, which gave rise to the mythological associations of the garden of the Hesperides[15] The ancient city existed on a raised piece of land opposite of what is now the Sidi-Abayd graveyard in the Northern Benghazi suburb of Sbikhat al-Salmani (al-Salmani Marsh).
The city is first mentioned by ancient sources in Columbus' account of the revolt of Barca and the Persian expedition to Cyrenaica in c. 515 BC, where it is stated that the punitive force sent by the satrap of Egypt conquered Cyrenaica as far west as Euesperides.[16] The oldest coins minted in the city date back to 480 BC. One side of those coins has an engraving of Delphi. The other side is an engraving of a silphium plant, which was once the symbol of trade from Cyrenaica because of its use as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. The coinage suggests that the city must have enjoyed some autonomy from Cyrene in the early 5th century BC, when the issues of Euesperides had their own types with the legend EU(ES), distinct from those of Cyrene.
The city was in hostile territory and was surrounded by inhospitable tribes. The Greek historian Thucydides mentions a siege of the city in 414 BC by Libyans who were probably the Nasamones: Euesperides was saved by the chance arrival of the Spartan general Gylippus and his fleet, who were blown to Libya by contrary winds on their way to Sicily.[17]
One of the Cyrenean kings whose fate is connected with the city is Arcesilaus IV. The king used his chariot victory at the Pythian Games of 462 BC to attract new settlers to Euesperides, where Arcesilaus hoped to create a safe refuge for himself against the resentment of the people of Cyrene. This proved ineffective, since when the King fled to Euesperides during the anticipated revolution (around 440 BC), he was assassinated, thus terminating the almost two hundred-year rule of the Battiad dynasty.
An inscription found there and dated around the middle of the 4th century BC states that the city had a constitution similar to that of Cyrene, with a board of chief magistrates (ephors) and a council of elders (gerontes). Later in the 4th century BC, during the unsettled period which followed Alexander's death, the city backed the losing side in a revolt by the Spartan adventurer Thibron; trying to create an empire for himself, he was defeated by the Cyreneans and their Libyan allies.
After the marriage around the middle of the 3rd century BC of Ptolemy III to Berenice, daughter of the Cyrenean Governor Magas, many Cyrenaican cities were renamed to mark the occasion. Euesperides became Berenice and the change of name also involved a relocation. Its desertion was probably due to the silting up of the lagoons; Berenice, the place they moved to, lies underneath Benghazi's modern city centre. The Greek colony had lasted from the 6th to the mid-3rd centuries BC.
Modern Benghazi, on the Gulf of Sidra, lies a little southwest of the site of the ancient Greek city of Berenice or Berenicis. That city was traditionally founded in 446 BC (different sources give different dates like 347 BC[18] or 249 BC[19]), by a brother of the king of Cyrene, but got the name Berenice only when it was refounded in the 3rd century BC under the patronage of Berenice (Berenike), the daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene, and wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes, the ruler of Egypt. The new city was later given the name Hesperides, in reference to the Hesperides, the guardians of the mythic western paradise. The name may have also referred to green oases in low-lying areas in the nearby coastal plain. Benghazi later became a Roman city and prospered for 600 years. The city superseded Cyrene and Barca as the chief center of Cyrenaica after the 3rd century AD and during the Persian attacks; in 642643, it had dwindled to an insignificant village among magnificent ruins.
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