Part of the country which has been known as Libya since the period of Italian colonization had been under Roman domination between 146 BC and 672 AD. These territories were at first divided into various shifting provinces, including Africa Vetus, Crete and Cyrenaica (which included the island of Crete, etc. Though the Latin term Libya often referred to the continent of Africa in general at this time, the primarily coastal territories within the modern State of Libya were reorganized in 296 AD from being jointly ruled along with Crete into the separate provinces of "Upper Libya" and "Lower Libya". This was the first time that the term Libya was used as a toponym for a political entity.