Aspects of the Circus at Lepcis Magna

By kind permission of the Department of Antiquities and of Professor Antonino Di Vita, Director of the Italian Mission, and with the financial support of the Society for Libyan Studies, the Oxford Craven Committee and the Cambridge Faculty Board of Classics, the authors spent three weeks in the early summer of 1974 studying the circus at Lepcis Magna. During the sixty years in which Italian archaeologists have been working at Lepcis, parts of the circus have been cleared or excavated on several different occasions. Work was begun in 1924-5 by R. Bartoccini at the monumental arch at the eastern end of the arena and on the seating on the north-east curve. He also uncovered the meta prima and the adjacent east end of the spina. Since 1960 a much larger area has been uncovered successively by E. Vergara-Caffarelli, F. Russo and A. Di Vita, as part of the larger project of clearing and restoring the whole of the amphitheatre-circus complex. Although work in most recent years has concentrated upon the complete clearance and restoration of the amphitheatre (which is cut into the hillside immediately south of the circus), two-thirds of the long south side of the circus has been revealed together with about half of the spina and most of the starting gates (carceres) at the west end.