Editing Lepidus (section)

==Reputation==
[[File:Lepidus, Antony and Octavian in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.jpg|thumb|Lepidus (right) browbeaten by Antony and Octavian. Illustration to Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'' by [[H. C. Selous]].]]

Lepidus's biographer Richard D. Weigel says that he has been typically caricatured by both ancient and modern historians as "weak, indecisive, fickle, disloyal and incompetent".<ref name = "lep"/> Cicero condemned Lepidus for "wickedness and sheer folly" after Lepidus allowed his forces to join with Mark Antony's after Antony's initial defeat at the [[Battle of Mutina]]. Cicero also privately suggested that Lepidus' wife, Junia, had been unfaithful to him. Decimus Brutus called him a "weathercock", and [[Velleius Paterculus]] called him "the most fickle of mankind" and incapable of command.<ref name = "lep">Weigel, Richard D., ''Lepidus: the Tarnished Triumvir'', Routledge, 2002, preface.</ref> According to [[Cassius Dio]], while Mark Antony and Octavian were away from Rome fighting Brutus and Cassius, Lepidus was nominally in control of the city, but Mark Antony's wife, [[Fulvia]], was the real power. Dio wrote, "She, the mother-in‑law of Octavian and wife of Antony, had no respect for Lepidus because of his slothfulness, and managed affairs herself, so that neither the senate nor the people transacted any business contrary to her pleasure".<ref>[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/48*.html Cassius Dio.48.4.1.]</ref>

Such views are reflected in [[Shakespeare]]'s portrayal of Lepidus in ''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]'' in which Antony describes him as "a slight, unmeritable man, meant to be sent on errands", comparable to a donkey required to bear burdens. In ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'' he is portrayed as extremely gullible, asking Antony silly questions about Egypt while very drunk. Antony taunts him with an elaborately nonsensical description of a Nile crocodile. After Lepidus's fall from power, he is referred to as the "poor third" and "fool Lepidius".<ref>Shakespeare, Wiliam, ''Antony and Cleopatra'', Cambridge university Press, 2008, Act III, scene 5.</ref>

Modern writers have often been equally dismissive. [[Ronald Syme]] called him "a flimsy character...perfidious and despised".<ref name = "lep"/>  Weigel argues that these views are coloured by evidence that was in large part politically motivated, and that Lepidus's career was no more perfidious or inconsistent than that of the other major players in the power struggles at the time.<ref name = "lep"/> Léonie Hayne says that he acted "skillfully and consistently in support of Antony and (indirectly) of the Caesarian faction". She also argues that his power bid over Sicily was logical and justifiable.<ref>Hayne, Léonie, "Lepidus' Role after the Ides of March", ''Acta Classica'', 14, 1971, pp.&nbsp;116–17; "The Defeat of Lepidus in 36 B.C.", ''Acta Classica'' 17, 1974, pp.&nbsp;59–65.</ref> Alain Gowing has also argued that his actions in Sicily, though "futile", were no more than an "attempt to regain a position from which he had been unfairly thrust".<ref>Quoted, Weigel, p.&nbsp;135.</ref>