Lepcis Magna or Leptis Magna, 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 grew as a prosperous trading center, but raids by desert tribes began in the 4th century AD and the city was virtually abandoned by the 8th century.

Lepcis Magna was associated with the Roman Empire for more than 600 years beginning in the 2nd century BC. During that time many buildings were constructed using Roman architectural styles. These Roman structures, well preserved under sand for centuries, have made the city an important area for archaeological study since the 1920s. Lepcis Magna was also known as the birthplace of Roman emperor Lucius Septimius Severus (AD 146-211).

Lepcis Magna, which 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.

Lepcis Magna enjoyed an unusual degree of autonomy under Roman rule. Unlike other African cities, it lost no land and was not forced to accept Roman settlers. It prospered because Rome stopped bandits from plundering the countryside and curbed unrest among local tribal groups.

During the Roman period, Lepcis was the Mediterranean outlet of a trade route through the Sahara into the interior of Africa. Its economy was based on agriculture, and some of its products, particularly olives, became profitable trade items. Olive cultivation added so much to the town’s prosperity that in 46 BC the Roman ruler Julius Caesar imposed an annual tax of three million pounds of oil on Lepcis. Inscriptions and literary sources attest to the wealth of the Lepcis Magna elite, who supported the continuing growth of the city.

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.

In 365 an earthquake damaged Lepcis Magna severely, but the greatest blow to the city’s prosperity came with the invasion of a Germanic tribe called the Vandals about 455. By 534 Lepcis Magna had become part of the Byzantine Empire. During this period of upheaval, much of Lepcis Magna was abandoned. By the time Arabs controlled the region in 642, the city was almost empty.

Because most of the Lepcis Magna’s fortified walls had been destroyed, the city was covered by sand over time. In the dry desert climate, the ruins of Lepcis Magna were preserved by these sand dunes. Between 1920 and World War II (1939-1945), when Libya was an Italian colony, Italian authorities began to excavate the city. After the war, the British continued work at the site and since that time have discovered many well-preserved Roman remains.