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Leptis Magna ((アラビア語:لَبْدَة) ''Labdah'')〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=لَبْدَة Libya ).〕 Great Leptis, or simply Leptis, known as Lebda to modern-day residents of Libya, was a prominent city of the Roman Empire. It was also known as Lectis Magna or Lepcis Magna as variations in Latin, Lpqy to ancient Berbers, and Neapolis to Ancient Greeks; today it is called as Lebida in transcriptions of Fusha Arabic. Magna means great in Latin, and the name Leptis Magna contrasts with Little Leptis, or Leptis Parva, in modern-day Tunisia. The ruins of Leptis Magna are located in Khoms, Libya, 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. == History as a city == The city appears to have been founded by a group of local Berbers (and probably Phoenicians) sometime around 1000 BC, who gave it the Lybico-Berber name ''Lpqy''.〔Birley, Anthony Richard (1971) ''Septimius Severus'' Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, (page 2 ), ISBN 0-413-26900-0〕 The town did not achieve prominence until Carthage became a major super 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 111 BC onward, it was for all intents and purposes an independent city. Soon Italian merchants settled in the city and started a profitable commerce with the Libyan interior.〔(Silvia Bullo: Provincia Africa. Leptis Magna. pg 167-171 (in Italian) )〕 The republican Rome sent some colonists together with a small garrison in order to control the city. Since then the city started to grow and was even allowed to create its own money (coins). 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. Leptis achieved its greatest prominence beginning in 193 AD, when a Berber native son, Lucius Septimius Severus, became emperor. He 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 and Alexandria. In 205 AD, he and the imperial family visited the city and received great honors. Among the changes that Severus introduced were to create a magnificent new forum and to rebuild the docks. The natural harbour 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 over-extended itself at this period. During the Crisis 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 the 365 tsunami, large parts of the city had been abandoned. Ammianus Marcellinus recounts that the crisis was worsened by a corrupt Roman governor named Romanus during a major tribal raid who demanded bribes to protect the city. The ruined city could not pay these and complained to the emperor Valentinian. 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 emperor Theodosius I. In 439 AD, Leptis Magna and the rest of the cities of Tripolitania fell under the control of the Vandals 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 523 AD when a group of Berber raiders sacked the city. Belisarius recaptured Leptis Magna in the name of Rome ten years later, and in 534 AD, he destroyed the kingdom of the Vandals. Leptis became a provincial capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (see Byzantine Empire) but never recovered from the destruction wreaked upon it by the Berbers. It was the site of a massacre of Berber chiefs of the Leuathae tribal confederation by the Roman authorities in 543 AD. Historian Theodore Mommsen wrote that under Byzantine rule the city was fully Christian.〔Theodore Mommsen. "The Provinces of the Roman Empire". section:Africa〕 During the decade 565-578 AD Christian missionaries from Leptis Magna even began to move once more among the Amazigh tribes as far south as the Fezzan in the Libyan desert and converted the Garamantes.〔(The last native Christian communities in north Africa )〕 But the city's decadence - linked even to the Sahara's desertification - continued, even though new churches were built,〔(Byzantine churches in Leptis Magna )〕 and by the time of the Arab conquest of Tripolitania in the 650s, the city was nearly abandoned except for a Byzantine garrison force. The progressive growth of arid land around Leptis damaged its importance and the port become full of sand. As a consequence, when Arabs arrived around 640 AD and later conquered Leptis, they found only a little garrison and a small city of less than 1,000 inhabitants. Under Arab domination Leptis disappeared: by the 10th century the city was forgotten and fully covered by sand.〔Silvia Bullo. "Provincia Africa: Leptis Magna". pg 185-188〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Leptis Magna」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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