place
Leontini
also: Leontini campum, Leontine plain, Leontinis
Leontini (modern Lentini), a Sicilian inland plain north-west of Syracuse, the most famous grain-belt of the island. Birthplace of the sophist Gorgias. The Leontine plain figures repeatedly in the tithe narratives of Verres (e.g. Verr. 2.3.117; 2.5.181) and in the politics of the late Republic as a notorious gift of public land (Phil. 2.43 to Sex. Clodius).
Reading notes
- Second Philippic §43 the Leontine plain
The fertile plain of Leontini in Sicily was public land of the Roman people; Cicero says Antony granted 2,000 tax-free acres of it to his teacher of rhetoric, Sextus Clodius.
- Third Philippic §22 the Leontine plain
The fertile grain-land around Leontini in Sicily; Cicero jeers that Antony's old teacher of rhetoric, Sextus Clodius, had been rewarded with two thousand tax-free acres there.