LEPTINES

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 482 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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LEPTINES , an Athenian orator, known as the proposer of a law that no Athenian, whether citizen or

resident

RESIDENT

alien

ALIEN (Lat. alienus)

(with the sole exception of the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton), should be exempt from the public charges (Aeerovpytac) for the state festivals. The object was to provide funds for the festivals and public spectacles at a time when both the treasury and the citizens generally were short of money. It was further asserted that many of the recipients of immunity were really unworthy of it. Against this law

Demosthenes

DEMOSTHENES

delivered (354 B.C.) his well-known speech Against Leptines in support of the proposal of Ctesippus that all the cases of immunity should be carefully investigated.

Great

GREAT

stress is laid on the reputation for ingratitude and breach of faith which the abolition of inn munities would bring upon the state. Besides, the law itself had been passed unconstitutionally, for an existing law confirmed these privileges, and by the constitution of Solon no law could be enacted until any existing law which it contravened had been repealed. The law was probably condemned. Nothing further is known of Leptines.
See the edition of the speech by J. E. Sandys (189o).
II
engineer, A. Daux, has discovered a probable line of ramparts Like its neighbour

Hadrumetum

HADRUMETUM

, Leptis Parva declared for Rome after the last Punic War. Also after the fall of Carthage in 146 it preserved its autonomy and was declared a civitas libera et immunis (Appian, Punka, 94; C.I.L. i. 200; De bell. Afric. c. xii.). Julius Caesar made it the base of his operations before the battle of Thapsus in 46 (Ch. Tissot, Geogr. comp. ii. 728). Under the Empire Leptis Parva became extremely prosperous; its bishops appeared in the African councils from 258 onwards. In Justinian's reorganization of Africa we find that Leptis Parva was with Capsa one of the two residences of the Dux Byzacenae (Tissot, op. cit. p. 171). The town had coins under

Augustus

AUGUSTUS (a name 1 derived from Lat. augeo, increase, i.e. venerable, majestic, Gr. Ee0avr6s)

and Tiberius. On the obverse is the imperial effigy with a Latin legend, and on the

reverse

REVERSE

the Greek legend AEIITIC with the bust of Mercury (Lud. Muller, Numism. de l'anc. Afrique, ii. 49). The ruins extend along the sea-

coast

COAST (from Lat. costa, a rib, side)

to the north-west of Lemta; the remains of docks, the amphitheatre and the

acropolis

ACROPOLIS (Gr. aKpos, top, a6)Xts, city)

can be distinguished; a Christian cemetery has furnished tombs adorned with curious mosaics.
See Comptes rendus de l'Acad. des Inscrip. et B.-Lettres (1883), p. 189; Cagnat and Saladin, " Notes d'archeol. tunisiennes," in the Bulletin monumental of 1884; Archives des missions, xii. III; Cagnat, Explorations archeol. en Tunisie, 3me fasc. pp. 9-16, and Tour du monde (1881), i. 292; Saladin, Rapport sur une mission en Tunisie (1886), pp. 9-20; Bulletin archeol. du comite de travaux historiques (1895), pp. 69-71 (

inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

of Lamta) ; Bulletin de la Soc. archeol. de Sousse (1905; plan of the ruins of Lamta). (E. B.*)
4.8 2 LEPTIS-

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