Crete, the great island of the southern Aegean; from the 2nd century BC a haunt of pirates and a base of resistance to Rome. Subdued in the war of 69-66 BC by Q. Caecilius Metellus Creticus and made a Roman province (often joined administratively to Cyrenaica). Cicero invokes Cretan witnesses in the Verrines (2.2.18); the Cretan immunity-grants of M. Antonius are condemned at Phil. 2.97.