I have coins from KYRENE and BERENIKAIA which were then in what was and is now "LIBYA." One of them actually is attributed to have a personification of Libya on the reverse (Ptolemy I obverse). Berenikaia is now pronounced "Benghazi."
The time frame is 500 BC to 100 BC.
Kyrene (Cyrene) was founded by Dorians from Thera. Their town prospered because of silphium, a natural contraceptive. (For more information see LIVIUS.org
www.livius.org/ct-cz/cyrenaica/cyrenaica.html and see also my "Money Talks" radio script archived at www.coin-newbies.com/articles/hearts.html ) Libya came under the sphere of the Ptolemies. It was a Greek town, historically, and physically close to Alexandria. One of the towns in the "pentapolis" was named BARCA, which is a Cathagenian name, but this was only an outpost for them, and they never penetrated into Libya, though there was at least one military expedition, a tangential event in Cathage's war with Syracuse.
As for the "axis of evil" Libya was not originally on the list...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1971852.stm... which fact opened them to some ridicule ...
http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/axis.shtml"... forcing Somalia to join with Uganda and Myanmar in the Axis of Occasionally Evil, while Bulgaria, Indonesia and Russia established the Axis of Not So Much Evil Really As Just Generally Disagreeable. ..."
And Libya has since mended its axially evil ways.
"Gaddafi deal signals end to secret nuclear weapon programme with Iran and North Korea" According to the Sunday Herald for 21 December 2003.
http://www.sundayherald.com/38834Ancient history just keeps playing over and over and over.