Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
CYRE'NE, the capital of a small province, and the chief city of Libya, in northern Africa. It was the centre of a wide district between Carthage and Egypt, and corresponding to modern Tripoli. It was a Grecian city, founded about b.c. 631. Under Alexander the Great the Jews were about one-fourth of the population, and were granted citizenship on the same terms as Greeks. At Alexander's death it was attached to Egypt; became a Roman province in
b.c. 75; Simon, who bore our Saviour's cross, was of that city, Matt 27:32; its people were at Jerusalem during the Pentecost, and they had a synagogue there, Acts 2:10; Acts 6:9, and some of them became preachers of the gospel. Acts 11:20; Acts 13:1. Cyrene was destroyed by the Saracens in the fourth century, and is now desolate.