A fat, pompous man feared and loathed by many, Augustine Leippa is also a survivor.  He has managed to retain his seat in the Helyan Senate for over twenty years despite charges of corruption including bribery and fraud.  As a younger man Leippa served as a notary in the Office of Public records in Sulis where it is rumoured he amassed much information on public officials, information - it is believed - Leippa used to extort favours and money out of high-ranking public officials.  Despite seeming overwhelmingly unpopular with the Helyan public, Leippa has been repeatedly returned to his position within the Senate. 

It was Augustine Leippa who introduced the two-term provision, a bill that decreed that all senators who are elected to office in consecutive terms would become lifelong members of the Senate.  It was Leippa who also advocated the doubling of senators' salaries, the creation of the gigantic statues of senators to stand atop the walls of Sulis and it was also Leippa who first proposed that Helyan military be cut back to reduce 'excessive and unecessary spending'. 

Leippa had no friends among the Senate but he did have a close association with Thassus Pi and these two became a formidable force as more and more senators realised that those who opposed the pair quickly found themselves excluded from the inner circle where many of the Senate's decisions were really made. 

Augustine Leippa has a son, Decius Semiramus, illegitimately born to a prostitute Leippa subsequently tried to send to the Hulks.  Decius was the Captain of the Watch, until Pylos Castalia took him on as his lieutenant, a fact that gnaws away at his father who hates both Pylos and the military.  Both father and son are too ashamed of each other to ever publicly admit to their kinship.