The Severan Basilica of Lepcis Magna

The city of Lepcis Magna, situated on the north coast of Libya was one of the main centers of Tripolitania. Its Roman origins go back to the last decades of the second century B.C. But it knew its monumental development in the early thirdth century A.D. under the reign of Septimius Severus who was born in Lepcis. To commemorate this fact he endowed his native city with a huge building program in which the new forum with the basilica was one of the main projects.

Building started around 209 and was finished in 216 by Septimius' son Caracalla. The forum program had to contain a sequence of two squares with the basilica in the middle as a hinge to mask the irregularity of the building plot. Only one square and the basilica were finished, the second square on the north east side towards the harbour was never build.

The whole building program was clearly inspired by eastern examples: a wide collonaded street linked the town center with the harbour; a fountain marked the transition between two street; forum and basilica were planned adjacent to the collonaded street. But over these eastern principles the basilica was imposed as a typical Roman building, the layout of which goes back to the earlier basilica Ulpia of Trajan's forum. In fact the Severan basilica brought the plan of the Ulpia to perfection.
Where in the Ulpia the two semicircular apses at the short ends were not yet incorporated into the building, screened of as they were from the central space by collonades, in the Severan basilica these two exedrae were part of the planning process.

The basilica has a total length of 75 meter with a central open space 19 meter wide. This central space is marked by collonades with two superimposed orders wich find an echo in the decoration of the two apses. But in the apses the superimposed orders are interrupted by two colossal columns on pedestals. These columns emphasize clearly the transversal axis of the building.

The colonnades end on the short walls with elaborately carved pilasters. Equally the apses are framed by the same kind of pilasters forming a decorative link between the colonnades and the apses. Sculpture and iconography of these pilasters are remarkable and clearly inspired by eastern examples. The pilasters framing the apses are carved on three sides with srolls issuing from chilices; vine and acanthus leaves cover the scrolls, which interlock to form a series of roundels inhabited by animals and human figures. The motif of the fore-parts of an animal issuing from an acanthus whorl had long been part of the repertory of Roman decorative art, deriving from hellenistic sources; here, scenes from the labours of Hercules and figures from the entourage of Bacchus on the pilasters on the south wall similarly emerge from whorls of foliage. It has been argued that the pilasters are Aphrodisian work; indeed it seems likely that the sculptors came from Aphodisias in Asia Minor where we find carvings of a comparable technique and quality.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A.Boëthius-J.B.Ward Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture, Harmondsworth, 1970.
M.Lyttelton, Baroque Architecture in Classical Antiquity, London, 1974.
D.Strong, Roman Art, Harmondsworth, 1976.
P.Gros, L'Architecture Romaine, 1. Les monuments publics, Paris, 1996.
R.Polidori, La Libye antique - Cités perdues de l'empire Romain, Paris, 1998.
J.M. Blas de Roblès, Libye Grecque, Romaine et Byzantine, Aix-en-Provence, 1999.

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