page_title: Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir)
section_title: Ally of Caesar
hierarchical_section_title: Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir) / Biography / Ally of Caesar
context_page_description: Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was a Roman general and statesman who formed the Second Triumvirate alongside Octavian and Mark Antony during the final years of the Roman Republic. Lepidus had previously been a close ally of Julius Caesar. He was also the last Pontifex Maximus before the Roman Empire.
  Though he was an able military commander and proved a useful partisan of Caesar, Lepidus has always been portrayed as the least influential member of the Triumvirate. He typically appears as a marginalised figure in depictions of the events of the era, most notably in Shakespeare's plays. While some scholars have endorsed this view, others argue that the evidence is insufficient to discount the distorting effects of propaganda by his opponents, principally Cicero and, later, Augustus.
context_section_description: Lepidus joined the College of Pontiffs as a child.  He started his cursus honorum as triumvir monetalis, overseeing the minting of coins, from c. 62 to 58 BC. Lepidus soon became one of Julius Caesar's greatest supporters. He was appointed as a praetor in 49 BC, being placed in charge of Rome while Caesar defeated Pompey in Greece. He secured Caesar's appointment as dictator, a position Caesar used to get himself elected as consul, resigning the dictatorship after eleven days. Lepidus was rewarded with the position of proconsul in the Spanish province of Hispania Citerior.
  While in Spain Lepidus was called upon to act to quell a rebellion against Quintus Cassius Longinus, governor of neighbouring Hispania Ulterior. Lepidus refused to support Cassius, who had created opposition to Caesar's regime by his corruption and avarice. He negotiated a deal with the rebel leader, the quaestor Marcellus, and helped defeat an attack by the Mauretanian king Bogud. Cassius and his supporters were allowed to leave and order was restored. Caesar and the Senate were sufficiently impressed by Lepidus' judicial mixture of negotiation and surgical military action that they granted him a triumph.
  Lepidus was rewarded with the consulship in 46 after the defeat of the Pompeians in the East. Caesar also made Lepidus magister equitum ("Master of the Horse"), effectively his deputy. Caesar appears to have had greater confidence in Lepidus than in Mark Antony to keep order in Rome, after Antony's inflammatory actions led to disturbances in 47. Lepidus appears to have been genuinely shocked when Antony provocatively offered Caesar a crown at the Lupercalia festival, an act that helped to precipitate the conspiracy to kill Caesar.
  When in February 44 Caesar was elected dictator for life by the Senate, he made Lepidus magister equitum for the second time. The brief alliance in power of Caesar and Lepidus came to a sudden end when Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 (the Ides of March). Caesar had dined at Lepidus' house the night before his murder. One of the ringleaders of the conspiracy, Gaius Cassius Longinus, had argued for the killing of Lepidus and Mark Antony as well, but Marcus Junius Brutus had overruled him, saying the action was an execution and not a political coup.
caption: One of the coins minted by Lepidus, celebrating his family's achievements. This depicts the Basilica Aemilia.