Lepta

• a Roman surname: Q. Lepta, praefectus fabrūm, Cic. Fam. 3, 7, 4; cf. id. ib. 5, 20, 4. To him are addressed the letters, Cic. Fam. 6, 18 and 19.

a native of Cales in Campania, and praefectus fabrûm to Cicero in Cilicia B. C. 51. (Cic. Fam. 3.7, 5.10). Two of the letters which Cicero addressed to him are extant (ad Fam. 6.18, 19), and show strict intimacy between the correspondents. Lepta was a Pompeian; and while Cicero, in B. C. 49, was hesitating whether to remain in Italy, or to repair to Pompey's camp, Lepta was one of his channels of communication with the Pompeians (ad Fam. 6.18, 14.17, 16.4, ad Att. 6.8, 8.3, 9.12, 14, 11.8.); and at the close of the war, after the battle of Munda, Lepta, through his zeal for two of his fellowtownsmen of Cales, was hazarding his own interests with the Caesarians. (Ad Fam. 9.13.) In B. C. 45 he was, however, suing for a commission to supply the wine for Caesar's triumphal games, for which his connection with Cales in the vine district (ager Falernus) of Campania probably afforded him facilities. (Ad Att. 13.46.) Cicero dissuaded him from undertaking it, as likely to prove a laborious and thankless task (Ad Fam. 6.19.) He was one of Cicero's debtors. (Ad Att. 10.11,) Lepta had at least one son, to whom Cicero (Cic. Fam. 6.18) recommends the reading of his treatise de Oratore, and a precept of Hesiod. (Op. et dies, 287.) [W.B.D]