Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (6–39) was the husband of the emperor
Caligula
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germanicu ...
's younger sister
Julia Drusilla
Julia Drusilla (16 September AD 16 – 10 June AD 38) was a member of the Roman imperial family, the second daughter and fifth child of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder to survive infancy. She was the favorite sister of Emperor Caligula, wh ...
.
Biography
Some areas of his lineage are unclear. He was possibly the son of
consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus. If so, he was also great-grandson of
Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus (consul of 50 BC and brother of the triumvir
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus), and through his mother
Julia the Younger
Vipsania Julia Agrippina (19 BC – c. AD 29) nicknamed Julia Minor (Classical Latin: IVLIA•MINOR) and called Julia the Younger by modern historians, was a Roman noblewoman of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was emperor Augustus' first grandda ...
, Lepidus was the great grandson of
Emperor Augustus.
Lepidus married Caligula's sister
Drusilla
Drusilla is a female given name deriving from the Roman cognomen Drusilla.
History
The name has its origin from the Latin cognomen (and later praenomen) ''Drusus'' which itself derived from the Greek ''drosos'' (dew). The diminutive "illa" t ...
sometime in November or December of 37.
[ Ferrill (1991), p. 109] Little is known about him prior to this.
[ Barrett (1989), p. 82] Drusilla had been married to
Lucius Cassius Longinus since 33 but Caligula forced his brother-in-law to divorce Drusilla so that she could marry Lepidus.
Cassius Dio and Suetonius both suggest that the emperor and his brother-in-law were lovers. The marriage lasted until Drusilla's death in June 38. They had no children. Because of this marriage, Lepidus became a close friend to Caligula and his family.
After the death of
Gemellus in 37, Lepidus was publicly marked by Caligula as his heir. In late 38, when the governor of Egypt
Aulus Avilius Flaccus was arrested, Lepidus successfully persuaded Caligula to exile Flaccus to
Andros rather than
Gyarus
Gyaros ( el, Γυάρος ), also locally known as Gioura ( el, Γιούρα), is an arid, unpopulated, and uninhabited Greece, Greek island in the northern Cyclades near the islands of Andros and Tinos, with an area of . It is a part of the muni ...
.
Sometime in 39, however, Caligula made public letters by his sisters
Agrippina the Younger
Julia Agrippina (6 November AD 15 – 23 March AD 59), also referred to as Agrippina the Younger, was Roman empress from 49 to 54 AD, the fourth wife and niece of Emperor Claudius.
Agrippina was one of the most prominent women in the Julio-Claud ...
and
Julia Livilla that detailed an adulterous affair with Lepidus and a plot against the emperor. Lepidus was executed and Caligula's sisters were exiled. Agrippina was given the bones of Lepidus in an urn, and she carried them to Rome. Caligula sent three daggers to the
Temple of Mars the Avenger to celebrate the death. In the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
,
Vespasian made a motion that the remains of Lepidus be thrown away instead of buried. The motion was carried and Lepidus was not given a proper burial.
Cultural depictions
A sculpture of Lepidus has been found at the imperial sebasteion in
Aphrodisias.
Citations
References
*
Barrett, Anthony A. (1989). ''Caligula: The Corruption of Power''. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
*
Ferrill, Arther (1991) ''Caligula: Emperor of Rome''. New York: Thames and Hudson. .
*
Philo, ''Flaccus''
*
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire.
His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
, ''Life of Caligula''
*
A detailed family tree of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty from the Princeton University website.
/cite>
Further reading
*Susan Wood. "Diva Drusilla Panthea and the Sisters of Caligula." ''American Journal of Archaeology'', Vol. 99, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), pp. 457–482 The article is available online (subscription required) from the JSTOR database. Lepidus's date of death is given as 39 AD in the article.
External links
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20140112003403/http://caligula.okdek.com/index.php?id=suetonius ''Life of Caligula'' by Suetonius (Alexander Thomson translation)br>''Flaccus'' by Philo''On Embassy to Gaius'' by Philo''Roman History'' by Cassius Dio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aemilius Lepidus, Marcus
1st-century Romans
Julio-Claudian dynasty
Aemilii Lepidi
Executed ancient Roman people
People executed by the Roman Empire
AD 6 births
39 deaths
1st-century executions