LEPTIS, now Lebda, the leading city of the ancient Tripolis, Northern Africa, extensive ruins of which exist on the coast, about 50 miles east of Tripoli. Leptis Magna, as it is usually called to distinguish it from Leptis Parva (now Lemta) in Byzacium, was a Phoenician colony, probably superimposed on an old Libyan settlement. The old town, of which the massive quays and docks are still extant, is similar to Carthage in position and plan, occupying a tongue of land to the west of the harbour. The new town, whose simple appellation Neapolis almost threatened the disuse of the name Leptis, is much more extensive; but the ruins belong to the later period of the Roman empire. Septimius Severus was a native of the place; and he not only bestowed upon it the jus Italicum, but enriched it with many costly buildings, the most remarkable being the palatium dedicated fortunes suae (Procopius). Ammianus mentions that Leptis was laid waste by the Austurians (a Libyan tribe) in 370; and, though Justinian enclosed a part of the city with new walls and made it the military seat of the province of Tripolis, it never recovered its prosperity, and from the time of the Arab conquest it disappears from history. The local inscriptions are Greek, Latin, and Punic. See Travels of AH Βey (by Badia y Lablich); Barth, Wanderungen, &c.; and Corpus Inscr. Lat,, viii.