Leptis Magna

Leptis Magna also known as Lectis Magna (or Lepcis Magna as it is sometimes spelled), also called Lpqy or Neapolis, was a prominent city of the Roman Empire. Its ruins are located in Al Khums, Libya, 130 km east of Tripoli, on the coast where the Wadi Lebda meets the sea. The site is one of the most spectacular and unspoiled Roman ruins in the Mediterranean.


Lepcis Magna or Leptis Magna is an ancient city along the Mediterranean Sea, located near the modern-day city of Al Khums in Libya. The city began as a trading port for the ancient people of Phoenicia around 1000 BC and then became part of the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis. Lepcis was the most easterly of the three cities that gave the North African region of Tripolitania its name.


The city appears to have been founded by Phoenician colonists sometime around 1100 BC, although it did not achieve prominence until Carthage became a major power in the Mediterranean Sea in the 4th century BC. It nominally remained part of Carthage's dominions until the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC and then became part of the Roman Republic, although from about 200 BC onward, it was for all intents and purposes an independent city.


Leptis Magna remained as such until the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius, when the city and the surrounding area were formally incorporated into the empire as part of the province of Africa. It soon became one of the leading cities of Roman Africa and a major trading post. It was located on a natural harbor protected by islands along the North African coast, began as a Phoenician trading post. In the 6th century BC Carthage became the dominant Phoenician colony and gradually took control of other Phoenician areas in North Africa, including Lepcis Magna. In 202 BC the Romans defeated Carthage in the Second Punic War. Emperor Trajan made Lepcis a colonia, a Roman colony with full Roman citizenship rights for the city’s population, in AD 109. The first Roman senator from Lepcis Magna began to serve in the early 2nd century.


Late in the 1st century BC, a quarry was opened at Ras el-Hammam south of Lepcis Magna that yielded an exceptionally fine, hard limestone used to build most of the town’s later structures. In AD 120 the people of Lepcis Magna built an aqueduct to carry water. In later years they also completed luxurious baths on the model of the imperial baths in Rome, a large circus or racetrack, and other public buildings.