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THE LAST OF THE ABM1LI1 LEPIDI
One of the significant features of the early principate is the predominance of the Aemilii Lepidi, for while the men held consulships and provincial governorships, the women were fit marriage partners even for Augustus' heirs. A study of this family is particularly interesting for two reasons : it reveals not only the way in which a noble Republican family still played an active role in a different set of circumstances, but also, in the descendants of L. Paullus, the fatal results of being too close to the centre of power.
Paullus' own career had always been overshadowed by that of his younger brother, M. Lepidus, the triumvir. With the rise of Octavian, however, the fortunes of the two branches were reversed : the year 36, which saw Lucius' son Paullus Aemi- lius Lepidus fighting beside Octavian in Sicily (for which he was suitably rewarded in later years1), also saw the deposition of Lepidus as triumvir. It is not therefore surprising, that Lepidus' family suffered during the first generation.
Of his two sons, the elder was killed for conspiracy against Octavianin either 3 1 or 302, whiletheyoungerwas apolitical 3. The latter, however, had a son and a daughter, and their
1 Suet., Aug. 16. Lucius had been proscribed by his brother but allowed to escape from Rome to Miletus, where he declined a later invitation, obviously from to return.
» Vell. Pat., II, 88 ; App., BC, IV, 50.
3 He has been identified (RE, Aemilius No. 79 and Münzer, Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien, p. 282) as the Q,. Lepidus who was consul in 2 1 . This Quintus, however, reached the consulship amid popular demonstrations in favour of Angustus which forced Augustus to return to Rome from Sicily and ultimately to appoint Agrippa (who became his son-in-law) administrator of the city. In these it seems impossible that the successful candidate for the consulship could be the son of a deposed triumvir and brother of an executed would-be assassin. Syme, Marcus Lepidus, capax imperii, in Journal of Roman Studies, 45 (1955), 22-23, is more likely correct in calling him the son of M\ Lepidus, consul in 66.
