ABSTRACT
Cicero’s stinging words of invective, occasioned by Lepidus’ resuscitation of Mark Antony’s flagging cause in 43 BC, have determined more than any other source the prevailing course of Lepidus’ Nachleben. It is not, however a result only of the great influence that the orator’s views would have on future generations, but also of the fact that to attack the pretensions of the emperor Augustus’ former triumviral colleagues also suited the purposes of Rome’s imperial historians. The positive points about Lepidus’ career would chiefly survive fragmented into isolated references, as pieces of flotsam in a sea of scorn, derision, and ridicule.
