A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

25. M'.AemiliusLepidus, 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.)