The broad history of most of these areas, with the exception of North Africa, follows a similar pattern. Alexander the Great invaded the former Persian territories and moved Greek speaking minority populations into most of these areas which came to politically dominate the regions by setting up Greek successor kingdoms. These Greek successor kingdoms were conquered by the Roman Empire, the Greek populations gradually began to consider themselves "Roman", and at this point in history, centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the remaining Roman (Byzantine) Empire was entirely Greek speaking at the elite level. From the time of the Babylonian Captivity to the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish population had also been dispersed around the Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, so most of these areas would have both minorities of Jews and Greek speaking Romans.

North Africa by this point in time would have been a mixture of the native Berber population and a Latin speaking Roman population, with many people of mixed ancestry. There also may have been people who still identified as with the Vandals who were a German tribe that had briefly ruled North Africa.

Egypt would have been mostly Egyptian (Coptic) with a Greek speaking Roman minority and a Jewish minority.

Cyrene would have been a mix of Greek speaking Romans and Jewish in the cities, with local tribes in the countryside.

The Levant would have been populated by a majority Syriac population, with large Jewish and Greek speaking Roman minorities.