Established as aPunic settlement prior to 500 BC,[2] the city experienced significant expansion under Roman EmperorSeptimius Severus (r. 193–211), who was born in the city. The3rd Augustan Legion was stationed here to defend the city againstBerber incursions. After the legion's dissolution underGordian III in 238, the city was increasingly open to raids in the later part of the 3rd century.Diocletian reinstated the city as provincial capital, and it grew again in prosperity until it fell to theVandals in 439. It was reincorporated into theEastern Empire in 533 but continued to be plagued by Berber raids and never recovered its former importance. It fell to theMuslim invasion inc. 647 and was subsequently abandoned.
After being abandoned, the city was remarkably preserved as it lay buried beneath layers of sand dunes. In the 1920s, the city was unearthed by Italian archaeologists duringItaly's occupation of Libya.[2] Its ruins are within present-dayKhoms,Libya, 130 km (81 mi) east ofTripoli. They are among the best-preserved Roman sites in the Mediterranean.
ThePunic name of the settlement was writtenLPQ (Punic:𐤋𐤐𐤒) orLPQY (𐤋𐤐𐤒𐤉).[3][4][5] This has been tentatively connected to theSemiticroot (present inArabic)LFQ, meaning "to build" or "to piece together", presumably in reference to the construction of the city.[6]
This name washellenized asLéptis (Ancient Greek:Λέπτις),[7] also known asLéptis Megálē (Λέπτις μεγάλη, "Greater Leptis") distinguishing it from the"Lesser Leptis" closer toCarthage in modern-dayTunisia. It was also known by the Greeks asNeápolis (Νεάπολις, "New Town"). Thelatinization of these names was Lepcis or Leptis Magna ("Greater Leptis"), which also appeared as the "Leptimagnese City" (Latin:Leptimagnensis Civitas). The Latin demonym was "Leptitan" (Leptitanus). It was also known asUlpiaTraiana as a Roman colony,[5] after EmperorTrajan of theUlpia gens. Its Italian name isLeptiMaggiore, and inArabic it is namedLabdah (لَبْدَة).[8][9]
ThePunic city was founded in the second half of the 7th centuryBC. Little is known about Leptis during this time, but it appears to have been powerful enough to repelDorieus's attempt to establish a Greek colony nearby around 515BC.[4] Like most Punic settlements, Leptis became part of theCarthaginian Empire and fell underRome's control withCarthage's defeat in thePunic Wars. Leptis remained highly independent for a period after about 111BC.
TheRoman Republic sent some colonists together with a small garrison in order to control the city. The city prospered and was even allowed to coin its own money in silver and bronze. Reflecting its blend of cultures, its coins borePunic inscriptions but images ofHercules andDionysus.[5] Soon Italian merchants settled in the city and started a profitable commerce with the Libyan interior.[10] The city depended primarily on the fertility of its surrounding farmland, where many olive-presses have been excavated. By 46BC, itsolive oil production was of such an extent that the city was able to provide three million pounds of oil annually toJulius Caesar as tax.[4]
During the reign ofAugustus, Leptis Magna was classified as acivitas libera et immunis, or a free community, over which the governor had an absolute minimum of control. As such Leptis retain its twosuphetes at the head of its government, with themhzm, similar to the Romanaediles, as minor magistrates. In addition there were such sacred officials as theʾaddir ʾararim orpraefectus sacrorum, thenēquim ēlīm, and probably a sacred college of fifteen members.
Leptis Magna remained as such until the reign of the Roman emperorTiberius, when the city and the surrounding area were formally incorporated into the empire as part of the province ofAfrica. It soon became one of the leading cities of Roman Africa and a major trading post. The city grew rapidly under Roman administration. During the reign ofNero, anamphitheater was constructed. The settlement was elevated tomunicipium in AD 64 or 65 and tocolonia underTrajan (r. 98–117). The first knownbishop of Leptis Magna was a certain priest calledVictor who became pope in 189.[12]
Leptis achieved its greatest prominence beginning in AD193, as the hometown of emperorSeptimius Severus. Septimius favored his hometown above all other provincial cities, and the buildings and wealth he lavished on it made Leptis Magna the third-most important city in Africa, rivaling Carthage andAlexandria. In AD205, he and the imperial family visited the city and bestowed great honors. Among the changes that Severus introduced were the creation of a magnificent newforum and the rebuilding of the docks. The natural harbor had a tendency to silt up, but the Severan changes made this worse, and the eastern wharves are extremely well preserved, since they were scarcely used.
Leptis overextended itself during this period. During theCrisis of the 3rd Century, when trade declined precipitously, Leptis Magna's importance also fell into a decline, and by the middle of the 4th century, even before it was completely devastated by the365 tsunami, large parts of the city had been abandoned.Ammianus Marcellinus recounts that the crisis was worsened by a corrupt Roman governor named Romanus, who demanded bribes to protect the city during a major tribal raid. The ruined city could not pay these and complained to the emperorValentinian I. Romanus then bribed people at court and arranged for the Leptan envoys to be punished "for bringing false accusations". It enjoyed a minor renaissance beginning in the reign of the emperorTheodosius I.
In 439, Leptis Magna and the rest of the cities ofTripolitania fell under the control of theVandals when their king,Gaiseric, captured Carthage from the Romans and made it his capital. Unfortunately for the future of Leptis Magna, Gaiseric ordered the city's walls demolished so as to dissuade its people from rebelling against Vandal rule. The people of Leptis and the Vandals both paid a heavy price for this in AD523 when a group of Berber raiders sacked the city.
Belisarius, general of EmperorJustinian I, recaptured Leptis Magna in the name of the Roman Empire ten years later, andin 533–4 it was re-incorporated into the empire. Leptis became a provincial capital of the Eastern Empire, but never recovered from the destruction wreaked upon it by the Berbers. In 544, under the prefecture of Sergius, the city came under intensified attack of Berber tribes, and after some successes, Sergius was reduced to retreating into the city, with theLeuathae tribal confederation camped outside the gate demanding payments. Sergius admitted eighty deputies into the city to present their demands, but when Sergius moved to leave the conference he was detained by the robe by one deputy and crowded by others. This provoked an officer of the prefect's guard to kill the deputy laying hands on the prefect, which resulted in a general massacre. The Berbers reacted with an all-out attack and Sergius was eventually forced to abandon Leptis and retreat to Carthage.[13]
By the 6th century, the city was fully Christianized.[14][failed verification] During the decade 565–578 AD, Christian missionaries from Leptis Magna even began to move once more among the Berber tribes as far south as theFezzan in the Libyan desert and converted theGaramantes.[15] Numerous new churches were built in the 6th century,[16] but the city continued to decline, and by the time of theArab conquest around 647 the city was mostly abandoned except for a Byzantine garrison force and a population of less than 1,000 inhabitants. By the 10th century, the city ofAl-Khums had fully absorbed it.[17]
Part of an ancient temple was brought from Leptis Magna to the British Museum in 1816 and installed at theFort Belvedere royal residence in England in 1826. It now lies in part ofWindsor Great Park.[18] The ruins are located between the south shore ofVirginia Water and Blacknest Road close to the junction with theA30 London Road andWentworth Drive.
The Roman theatre
When Italians conqueredItalian Libya in the early 20th century, they dedicated huge efforts to the rediscovery of Leptis Magna. In the early 1930s, Italian archeological research was able to show again the buried remains of nearly all the city.[19][page needed] A 4th to 3rd centuryBC necropolis was found under theRoman theatre.
In June 2005, it was revealed that archaeologists from theUniversity of Hamburg had been working along the coast of Libya when they uncovered a 30ft length of five colorfulmosaics created during the 1st or 2nd century. The mosaics show with exceptional clarity depictions of a warrior in combat with a deer, four young men wrestling a wild bull to the ground, and a gladiator resting in a state of fatigue and staring at his slain opponent. The mosaics decorated the walls of a cold plunge pool in abalneae within aRoman villa at Wadi Lebda in Leptis Magna. The gladiator mosaic is noted by scholars as one of the finest examples of representational mosaic art ever seen—a "masterpiece comparable in quality with theAlexander Mosaic inPompeii." The mosaics were originally discovered in the year 2000 but were kept secret in order to avoid looting. They are currently on display in theLeptis Magna Museum.[20]
There were reports that Leptis Magna was used as a cover for tanks and military vehicles by pro-Gaddafi forces during theFirst Libyan Civil War in 2011.[21] When asked if the historic site could be targeted in an airstrike,NATO refused to rule out the possibility of such an action, saying that it had not been able to confirm the rebels' report that weapons were being hidden at the location.[22] Shortly after the war, Libyan archaeologist Hafed Walda reported that Leptis Magna, along with nearby Rasaimergib Fort and the westernTripolis ofSabratha, had "so far seen no visible loss" from either fighting on the ground orbombings conducted by international forces.[23]
In the midst of theSecond Libyan Civil War and the disappearance of governmental and international support for the site, people living in the area organized to voluntarily protect and maintain Leptis Magna.[24][25]
Since they are located on the coast, Leptis Magna ruins are vulnerable tosea level rise. In 2022, theIPCC Sixth Assessment Report included them in the list of African cultural sites which would be threatened byflooding andcoastal erosion by the end of the century, but only ifclimate change followedRCP 8.5, which is the scenario of high and continually increasinggreenhouse gas emissions associated with the warming of over 4°C.,[26] and is no longer considered very likely.[27][28] The other, more plausible scenarios result in lower warming levels and consequently lower sea level rise: yet, sea levels would continue to increase for about 10,000 years under all of them.[29] Even if the warming is limited to 1.5°C, global sea level rise is still expected to exceed 2–3 m (7–10 ft) after 2000 years (and higher warming levels will see larger increases by then), consequently exceeding 2100 levels of sea level rise under RCP 8.5 (~0.75 m (2 ft) with a range of 0.5–1 m (2–3 ft)) well before the year 4000. Thus, it is a matter of time before the Leptis Magna ruins are threatened by rising water levels, unless they can be protected by adaptation efforts such assea walls.[30]
^abcGates, Charles (2011).Ancient cities: the archaeology of urban life in the ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. p. 406.ISBN978-0-203-83057-4.
^Trisos, C.H., I.O. Adelekan, E. Totin, A. Ayanlade, J. Efitre, A. Gemeda, K. Kalaba, C. Lennard, C. Masao, Y. Mgaya, G. Ngaruiya, D. Olago, N.P. Simpson, and S. Zakieldeen 2022:Chapter 9: Africa. InClimate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke,V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, US, pp. 2043–2121
De Miro, Ernesto; Polito, Antonella (2005).Leptis Magna. Dieci anni di scavi archeologici nell area del Foro Vecchio. I livelli fenici, punici e romani [Leptis Magna: Ten Years of Archaeological Excavations in the Area of the Old Forum. The Phoenician, Punic and Roman Levels.]. Quaderni di Archeologia della Libya, 19 (in Italian and Arabic). Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider.ISBN9788882653095.
Ghaki, Mansour (2015)."Toponymie et onomastique. L'apport de l'ecriture punique neopunique" [Toponymy and Onomastics: The Contribution of Neopunic Punic Writing](PDF). In Di Tolla, Anna Maria (ed.).La lingua nella vita e la vita della lingua. Itinerari e percorsi degli studi berberi. Miscellanea per il Centenario di studi berberi a "L'Orientale" di Napoli. Scritti in onore di Francesco Beguinot [Language in Life and the Life of Language: Routes and Paths of Berber Studies. Miscellany for the Centenary of Berber Studies at "L'Orientale" in Naples: Written in Honor of Francesco Beguinot.]. Studi Africanistici: Quaderni di Studi Berberi e Libico-Berberi, 4 (in French). Naples:Unior. pp. 65–71.ISBN9788867191253. Retrieved2020-08-31 – via Academia.edu.
Head, Barclay; et al. (assisted byG. F. Hill, George MacDonald, andW. Wroth) (1911)."Syrtica".Historia Numorum (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 875 – viaDigital Historia Numorum, ed. Ed Snible.
Kreikenbom, Detlev (2007). "Leptis Magna vor der arabischen Eroberung" [Leptis Magna Before the Arab Conquest]. In Kreikenbom, Detlev; Muth, Franz-Christoph; Thielmann, Jörn (eds.).Arabische Christen – Christen in Arabien [Arab Christians – Christians in Arabia]. Nordostafrikanisch-Westasiatische Studien, 6 (in German). Frankfurt am Main & New York: Peter Lang. pp. 35–54.ISBN9783631550403.
Musso, Luisa (2010)."Missione archeologica dell'Università Roma Tre, 1998-2007" [Archaeological Mission of Roma Tre University, 1998-2007](PDF). The Department of Archaeology of Libya.Libya Antiqua. New series (in English and Italian).V. Contributions by Daniela Baldoni, Barbara Bianchi, Maria Gloria Calì, Barbara Davidde, Ginette Di Vita-Evrard, Massimiliano Munzi, Roberto Petriaggi, Beatrice Pinna Caboni, Gianni Ponti & Ramadan Shebani. Pisa & Rome: Fabrizio Serra Editore:49–78.OCLC4221464. Retrieved2020-08-31 – via Academia.edu.
Robin, Daniel (2010).This Holy Seed: Faith, Hope and Love in the Early Churches of North Africa (2nd ed.). Chester: Tamarisk Publications.ISBN9780953856534.
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