Ancient city of Derna in Libya

The town was founded in the 15th century on the site of Darnis, an ancient Greek colony (rock tombs remain). The city was one of an important Mediterranean port in the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans.

The history of the region commences with the Greek colonization of Cyrene ca. 631 B.C. Herodotos says that Delphi directed Thera to send a small band of settlers under the leadership of Battos to found a city in Libya. After six years of living by the sea not far from Darnis, Battos moved his people to Cyrene where they were assured of a constant supply of water and the protection of the high ground.

Derna, also spelled Darnah, town, northeastern Libya, situated on the Mediterranean coast east of Benghazi. It lies on the eastern ridges of the Akhḍar Mountains in the delta of the small Wadi Derna.

In 1801 the French troops on their way to Egypt were refused a landing by the plucky inhabitants. Derna once played an important role in U.S. military history. In 1805, Consul William Eaton led seven U.S. marines and several hundred Greek, Arab and Turkish mercenaries on a 500-mile march from Alexandria to Derna, where his odd little army took the city from a larger Karamanli force in little more than an hour.

Derna experienced a plague in 1816 and a cholera outbreak and an earthquake in 1834. It was a slave port until the 1850s.
Ancient city of Derna in Libya