The first inhabitants of Libya were Berber tribes. In the 7th century B.C., Phoenicians colonized the eastern section of Libya, (Cyrenaica), and Greeks colonized the western portion, (Tripolitania). Tripolitania was for a time under Carthaginian control.

It became part of the Roman Empire from 46 B.C. to A.D. 436, after which it was sacked by the Vandals. Cyrenaica belonged to the Roman Empire from the 1st century B.C. until its decline, after which it was invaded by Arab forces in 642.

Beginning in the 16th century, both Tripolitania and Cyrenaica nominally became part of the Ottoman Empire. Tripolitania was one of the outposts for the Barbary pirates who raided Mediterranean merchant ships or required them to pay tribute, which led to the Tripolitan war with the US that ended tributes in 1805.

After the outbreak of hostilities between Italy and Turkey in 1911, Italy occupied Libya until during World War II 1943 . In 1949, the UN voted Libya independence.

Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI took power in a 1969 military coup, and has espoused his own political system - a combination of socialism and Islam - which he calls the Third International Theory. Viewing himself as a revolutionary leader, he formerly promoted an ideology outside Libya, to hasten the end of  both Marxism and capitalism.CIA - The World Factbook -- Libya

Italy is Libya's largest trading partner, taking 42% of Libya's exports, and ships 25% of Libya's imports.

Libya received 300,000 foreign tourists last year, mostly Europeans drawn by Libya's fabled Roman ruins, considered the best outside Italy.

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DESTINATION: LIBYA
THE CURTAINS PART, REVEALING WONDERS

A U.S. tour group on a first-ever visit to the North African country encounters a cache of ancient treasures in a difficult, captivating land.

Los Angeles Times
By Susan Spano
Times Staff Writer
May 23, 2004

"Inshallah" means "God willing" in Arabic. It's good to know if you visit this Muslim country on the north coast of Africa, now open to Americans after 20 years of U.S. sanctions.

The thaw in relations cracks open a tantalizingly closed door. On the other side are such marvels of the ancient world as the ruins of Sabratha and Leptis Magna; the vibrant capital city of Tripoli, poised between dilapidation and rehabilitation; 1,250 miles of Mediterranean coast; oasis towns still visited by camel caravans; and the intelligent, self-sure Libyan people, who met me with eager curiosity on my visit...

Best of all, Libya, like China in the 1970s, remains largely untouched by the despoiling hand of commercial tourism. There's a prevailing air of naiveté and freshness unlike any I've ever felt.

Visitors have been trickling into Libya all along. It received 300,000 foreign tourists last year, mostly Europeans drawn by Libya's fabled Roman ruins, considered the best outside Italy, and its sandy Saharan south, which in the last decade has taken the place of strife-torn Algeria as a destination for desert treks...

Tripoli

(On my arrival, I was taken to )... Aldeyafa Hotel, in downtown Tripoli surrounded by construction sites; nine hotels are due to open here in the next year, they said. The rooms at the Aldeyafa were small, ugly and airless, but the baths were sparkling clean and oversized...

When I marveled at the fake Christmas trees in shops along Omar al-Mukhtar Street, named for a martyred hero in the resistance movement against early 20th century Italian colonial rule, Bilal said they would be used the next week for decorations in celebration of the prophet Muhammad's birthday.

Then he showed me how to cross the street in Tripoli, where the roads aren't divided into lanes, there are no stop signs and vehicles move in herds. You walk out bravely, with a raised hand and index finger pointing heavenward, as if to say, "Fail to stop at the risk of Allah's wrath." It worked.

I could spend more time in Tripoli, which has about 1.5 million people, a fourth of Libya's total population. It has been many things since the Phoenicians founded it about 500 BC: a Roman colonial hub that sent grain, slaves and gold from central Africa to the Imperial capital; an outpost of gilded Byzantium; home port of Barbary pirates; and the seat of colonial aspirations of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini before Libya gained its independence after World War II. It sits beside the Mediterranean, all white and toothpaste green, decorated everywhere with portraits of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadafi, not sure whether it is going to join the 21st century or continue to molder on the North African coast.

In the city's heart, on Green Square, where both Kadafi and Mussolini addressed crowds...Streets to the east, with shuttered balconies and Baroque plaster molding, speak of the Italian colonial period, which started in 1911 and left many Libyans fluent in Italian, eating pasta and bearing Italian last names.

To the west of the square are the walled old city and castle, which date largely from the era of the Ottoman Turks from 1500 to 1800 and house the Jamahiriya Museum, where I saw much to admire and intrigue: its extraordinary cache of sculpture, mosaics, coins and other treasures from the classical world; Roman friezes from the triumphal arch in Leptis Magna; a polished marble statue of the Three Graces from the Greek satellite city Cyrene in eastern Libya; and Kadafi's battered green VW bug, which got him around while he plotted the 1969 coup that toppled King Idris I.

In the labyrinthine old city, there are Roman arches and columns, the handsomely restored old British consulate, which is wrapped around a courtyard, that sent expeditions into the Sahara (claiming the lives of 150 explorers in the 19th century alone)...

Most women were veiled but stylish in long, sleek skirts, tailored jackets and spike heels; Kadafi has encouraged their education and participation in the workforce
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Sabratha: A Roman landmark

The next morning I went by taxi to Sabratha, an hour's drive west of Tripoli on a good highway through countryside that reminded me of Southern California. At the dusty, unprepossessing entrance, I was paired with an English-speaking guide.

Sabratha, one of the smaller Roman colonial cities in North Africa, thrived on its undulating stretch of coast in the 2nd century, then, like Leptis Magna, was buried in sand. Italian archeologists began working concertedly at Sabratha in the 1920s, and some of the statues and mosaics found there are now displayed in a small museum on the grounds. But much of the site remains unexcavated, the guide told me.

Among its chief glories are villas with private baths, including one with the words "Bene Laba" (Latin for "good wash") inscribed in a mosaic on the floor. Sabratha's monumentally colonnaded Temple of Isis, built from 30 BC to AD 14, looms by the beach, waves occasionally spilling over its foundation. The nearby 2nd century theater is exquisitely intact, designed to amplify actors' voices and keep the audience cool by funneling ocean breezes through doorways on the backstage wall.

I returned to Tripoli and was installed in the 28-floor Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel, overlooking the ocean west of the old city. The hotel looks part space shuttle launchpad, part Mormon temple. It opened a year ago as Libya's first deluxe hotel and has all the obligatory bells and whistles: a spa with a smashing indoor swimming pool, numerous restaurants, room service and 300 handsomely decorated chambers.

I had an algae scrub in the hammam, or bathhouse, where as I disrobed my attendant said, "Don't worry, madam. You are in five stars."

At Leptis Magna

..Leptis, a two-hour drive east of Tripoli, is vast and remarkable. It was once the terminus of a trade route to sub-Saharan Africa, one of about 600 colonial settlements on the coast of North Africa that fed the empire's talent pool. By 200, a third of the senators in Rome were from North Africa and a native son of Leptis Magna, Septimus Severus, had ascended the throne of the Caesars. The partly reconstructed arch near the entrance of the site was built to commemorate his visit home in 203.

>From that arch, toppled Corinthian capitals, cracked columns, floors with mosaics still clinging to them, temples and forums roll down to the sea. We stopped at the Hadrianic Baths, which had cold and hot pools and still-intact marble toilets. We ambled down the great colonnaded street that leads to the port, posed for pictures at stalls in the market and sat for a spell in the amphitheater, imagining the brawls between exotic beasts and gladiators.

Though the spell of ancient times was strong, there were, at every turn, groups of Libyan schoolchildren to break it. Some peeked at us shyly, others stared boldly,... They all wanted photos of themselves with the Americans.

In the end, their eagerness to know us, despite the war in Iraq and every vilification of the West I imagine they'd heard, is what I'll remember most about being a part of the first American tour group to Libya. There will be many more, inshallah.
— Susan Spano

Los Angeles Times: The curtains part, revealing wonders
http://www.latimes.com/travel/
la-tr-libya23may23,1,4953067.story?coll=la-home-travel