Le'pidus
25. M'.
Aemilius Lepidus, Q. F., the son apparently of No. 21, was consul with T. Statilius Taurus in A. D. 11. (
D. C. 56.25.)
He must be carefully distinguished from his contemporary M. Aemilius Lepidus, with whom he is frequently confounded. [See No. 23.] Though we cannot trace the descent of this M'. Lepidus [see No. 21], yet among his ancestors on the female side were L. Sulla and Cn. Pompey. (
Tac. Ann. 3.22.)
It is perhaps this M'. Lepidus who defended Piso in A. D. 20; and it was undoubtedly this Lepidus who defended his sister later in the same year. [LEPIDA, No. 2.] In A. D. 21 he obtained the province of Asia, but Sex. Pompey declared in the senate that Lepidus ought to be deprived of it, because he was indolent, poor, and a disgrace to his ancestors, but the senate would not listen to Pompey, maintaining that Lepidus was of an easy rather than a slothful character, and that the manner in which he had lived on his small patrimony was to his honour rather than his disgrace. (
Tac. Ann. 3.11,
22,
32.)
