Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Syrtĭca Regio

（ἡ Συρτική). Now the western part of Tripoli; the special name of that part of the northern coast of Africa which lay between the two Syrtes, from the river Triton, at the bottom of the Syrtis Minor, on the west, to the Philaenorum Arae, at the bottom of the Syrtis Maior, on the east. It was for the most part a very narrow strip of sand, interspersed with salt marshes, between the sea and a range of mountains forming the edge of the Great Desert (Sahara), with only here and there a few spots capable of cultivation, especially about the river Cinyps. It was peopled by Libyan tribes. Under the Romans it formed a part of the province of Africa. It was often called Tripolitāna, from its three chief cities, Abrotonum, Oea, and Leptis Magna; and this became its usual name under the Later Empire, and has been handed down to our own time in the modern name of the regency of Tripoli.