CYRENAICA, or Pentapolis, in ancient geography, a district of Africa, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, lying exactly opposite to Greece, at the distance of about 250 miles. It received the name of Cyrenaica from Cyrene, its chief city;, and that of Pentapolis from the fact of its containing five principal cities, Berenice or Hesperus, Barce, Cyrene, Apollonia, and Arsinoë or Teucheira, now identified respectively with Benghazi, El Merdj, Grennah or Shahat, Marsoe, Sousah, and Tocra. The district extended inland about 80 miles, and included that portion of the African continent which stretched from the frontier of Egypt on the east to the borders of Africa Propria on the west which were marked by the tumuli of Arae Philaenorum. On its southern frontier Cyrenaica is protected from the scorching winds of the Sahara by a range of lofty mountains which descend in gradual slopes to the sea, and produce within a small compass a great variety of climate and temperature. Its vegetable products consequently comprised all the more important species to be found in the tropical and temperate zones; and, as its position was admirably adapted for commerce, nothing was wanting but an enterprizing population to make it one of the most valuable countries in the world. The people of Thera, under Battus, a native of that island, were the first to colonize Cyrenaica. After a slight opposition from the native tribes, they established themselves in the country, and founded Cyrene in 631 b.c. There soon sprang up in advantageous situations other cities which, while acknowledging Cyrene as the capital of the country, were really independent, and at length threw off its yoke altogether. After the invasion of Cambyses the regal form of government was entirely abolished, and the republican ...

CYRENAICS, a Greek school of philosophers, so called from Cyrene, the birth-place of their founder Aristippus, who was a disciple of Socrates. They held that the one aim in life is to enjoy as many moments of as intense pleasure as possible. The pleasures of sense are to be preferred as the most intense, for duration and intensity are the only qualities in which pleasures really differ. For the wise choice of pleasures intellectual cultivation is needed; and there must also be self-control and power of resisting desire. According to Aristippus, what each is to seek is his own present pleasure, though he modified this teaching by his doctrine of self-control. But his follower Theodorus held, like the Epicureans, that permanent tranquillity and cheerfulness are to be sought rather than passing pleasures. The position of Hegesias, the advocate of suicide, who is counted among the Cyrenaics, is far apart from that of Aristippus; with him avoidance of trouble is the highest attainable good. Anniceris the younger differed from Aristippus in declaring that selfish pleasures are to be sometimes sacrificed to sympathetic. Other members of the school were Arete the daughter of Aristippus, Aristippus her son, Bio, and Euhemerus.

See, besides the histories of philosophy, and works on the various members of the school separately, Diog. Laert.; Wendt, De Philosophia Cyrenaica; H. v. Stein, De Philosophia Cyrenaica; Mullach, Fragmenta Phil. Groec., vol. ii.