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Marcus Lepidus, Capax Imperii

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Ronald Syme
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Extract

The theme ‘capax imperii', immortalized by Tacitus’ verdict on the Emperor Galba, runs through his writings, and imparts a unity to the record of conspiracies and civil wars. It emerges quickly in the Annals. Augustus, so an anecdote alleges, discussed the matter when his end was near, and made play with the names of three men. M. Lepidus, he said, had the capacity but no desire; Asinius Gallus was eager but not good enough; Arruntius, however, was not unworthy and might make a bid. Moreover, according to; Tacitus, some versions named Cn. Piso instead of Arruntius. There it might rest, a happy invention, or at least an unverifiable report, did not the story raise a problem of historical identity. Who was the Lepidus whom the dying Princeps rated so highly, Marcus or Manius ? The Codex Mediceus has ‘M. Lepidum’: all modern editors alter the praenomen and read ‘M'. Lepidum’.

This passage is only the beginning of the trouble. Two Aemilii Lepidi of consular standing recur in the Annals and annoy the conscientious reader. They are not at all easy to keep apart, despite the operations of scholars since Justus Lipsius. Those operations have been considerable. Following Lipsius' lead, Borghesi and Nipperdey evolved a doctrine about the two Lepidi which won rapid and general acceptance, with hardly a murmur of dissent anywhere, and it now stands canonical both in editions of Tacitus and in the works of reference. It involved an alteration of the manuscript reading, easy and trivial to all appearance—the substitution of the abbreviated praenomen M'. for M. That change was made, not only in the passage in Book I about the ‘capaces imperii’, but in seven other, places, no less. In consequence Marcus Lepidus dwindles miserably and is all but blotted out, whereas Manius is augmented and exalted. The time has come to challenge the legitimacy of the procedure, and to look at the results.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1-2 , November 1955 , pp. 22 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Ronald Syme 1955. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Ann. 1, 13, 2: ‘M. Lepidum dixerat capacem sed aspernantem, Gallum Asinium avidum et minorem, L. Arruntium non indignum et si casus daretur ausurum. de prioribus consentitur, pro Arruntio quidam Cn. Pisonem tradidere; omnesque praeter Lepidum variis mox criminibus struente Tiberio circumventi sunt.’

2 Nipperdey's doctrine was clearly formulated in his long note on 111, 32, 2. For modern works it will be enough to adduce Groag in PIR 2, A369. Nobody, it appears, gave heed to G. H. Walther, who in his edition (Halle, 1831) had put the case for M. Lepidus as ‘capax imperii’, using the right arguments. That scholar has generally been undervalued: he was firm and pertinacious against emendations.

3 Marcus in 1, 13, 2, not Manius, was postulated (briefly) in Roman Revolution (1939), 433—and reiterated in JRS XXXIX (1949), 7Google Scholar. Not having seen, however, that the emended items are vulnerable, each and all, I accepted the standard attribution of IV, 20, 2, to Manius Lepidus (Rom. Rev. 517: rejected in the reprint of 1952). The present paper was composed in 1948, the annotation added in 1955.

4 He is M'. f. by filiation (Inscr. de Délos 1659)., The parent can be the monetalis M'. Lepidus, Aemilius (BMC, R. Rep. 11, 291, no. 590Google Scholar = Sydenham, E. A., The Roman Republican Coinage (1952) 74, no. 554)Google Scholar; and the presumed ancestor may be M. Aemilius M'. f. M'. n. (cos. 158).

5 In 65, as one of the five consulars who testified against C. Cornelius (Asconius 53, cf. 70); and in 57 (Ad Q. fratrem 11, 1, 1).

6 Ad Att. VII, 12, 4, etc.

7 ibid IX, 1, 12. He was dead by 44, cf. Phil. 11, 12.

8 PIR 2, A 376. The inscription on the Pons Fabricius (CIL 12, 751 = ILS 5892) furnishes his filiation and shows that he could not be a son of the Triumvir.

9 A grandson, cf. Phil. XII, 15. The intermediate generation is represented by a Quintus; only an item of nomenclature.

10 PIR 2, A 368. More things than one are questionable in this ‘conspiracy’, variously reported by Livy, 'Per. CXXXIII; Velleius 11, 88; Appian, , BC IV, 50Google Scholar. It is absent from Dio's narration, but alluded to subsequently under 18 B.C. (LIV, 15, 4).

11 Unless he be the Q. Aemilius Lepidus in a list of sudden deaths taken by Pliny from Verrius Flaccus (NH VII, 181). That person, however, might be the parent of the consul of 78 B.C.

12 III, 22, 1.

13 VI, 29, 3: ‘insignis nobilitate et orandis causis, vita probrosus.’

14 cf. Groag's stemma of the Cornelii Sullae in PIR 2 III, facing p. 362. Aemilia Lepida is therefore a first cousin of Sulla Felix (PIR 2 C 1463), the father of Faustus Sulla (cos. 31) and of L. Sulla Felix (cos. 33). Mam. Scaurus also comes in here, being both the uncle and the stepfather of a L. Sulla (Ann. III, 31, 4), i.e. probably the consul of 33.

15 For depressed nobiles, Rom. Rev. 377; for the ‘Pompeian’ affinities of Tiberius, ibid. 424 f.; for the mixed character of his following discernible after a.d. 4 (aristocrats and novi homines), ibid. 434 f. Cn. Cinna Magnus, who came late to the consulate in a.d. 5, is close kin to the descendants of Faustus and Pompeia—being, indeed, the son of Pompeia by her second marriage.

16 Arruntius, like Mam. Scaurus, is described as a ‘propinquus’ of L. Sulla (III, 31, 3).

17 Presumably by adoption, cf. Groag in PIR 2 A 1140. Hence a further link with the line of Magnus, attested by the name ‘Scribonianus’. The son of the pretender Scribonianus is described as ‘a[bnepos]’ or ‘a[dnepos]’ of Magnus (ILS 976).

18 Appian, , BC IV, 37Google Scholar.

19 cf. Rom. Rev. 237 ff.

20 Propertius IV, 11, 37 f., cf. 29 f.

21 Scribonia's husbands are a pretty problem. Suetonius, mentioning her marriage to Octavianus in 40, calls her ‘nuptam ante duobus consularibus’ (Divus Aug. 62, 2). Hardly correct, cf. Groag in PIR 2 C 1395. The parent of Cornelia should be a P. Scipio, for her brother is P. Cornelius P.f.P.n. Scipio (cos. 16 B.C.). The Fasti of the Magistri Vicorum (first published in 1935) disclosed a P. Cornelius, suffect in 35 B.C. This ought to be the man, cf. Rom. Rev. 229 f. But other problems remain—who was his father?

22 PIR 2 C 1103.

23 Suetonius, Divus Aug. 19, 1, cf. the scholiast on Juvenal VI, 158. There is no other evidence. The incident may fall in a.d. 8, cf. Rom. Rev. 432. E. Hohl suggested a.d. I (Klio xxx (1937), 337 ff.Google Scholar).

24 P1R 2 C 1438. That Scipionic descent may, however, derive from Lentuli Marcellini, cf. Groag's remarks under C 139s.

25 The presumed parent of Sulla Felix (PIR 2 C 1463), and grandfather of the consuls of 31 and 33. His sister Cornelia is likewise only a genealogical construction, wife of Q. Lepidus M.f. (likewise not consul).

26 Seneca, , De ben. IV, 30, 1Google Scholar. He goes on to discuss Fabius Persicus and Mam. Scaurus.

27 Velleius 11, 114, 5; 115, 2 f.; Dio LVI, 12, 2; cf. 17, 2.

28 Velleius 11, 125, 5: ‘at Hispanias exercitumque «in iis cum M. Lepidus, de cuius» virtutibus celeberrimaque in Illyrico militia praediximus, cum imperio obtineret, in summa pace et quiete continuit.’ The supplement is due to Madvig. An inscription at Uxaraa honours a M. Aemilius Lepidus as ‘patronus’ (CIL 11, 2820).

29 id. 11, 114, 5: ‘autumno victor in hiberna reducitur exercitus, cuius omnibus copiis a Caesare M. Lepidus praefectus est, vir nomini ac fortunae Caesarum proximus, quern in quantum quisque aut cognoscere aut intellegere potuit, in tantum miratur ac diligit tantorumque nominum quibus ortus est ornamentum iudicat.’ The praenomen ‘M.’ is one of the improvements (from the lost Codex Murbacensis) added by Burer to the editio princeps of Beatus Rhenanus.

30 viz. III, 11, 2; 35, 1; 50, 1; IV, 20, 2; 56, 3; VI, 5, 1; 27, 4.

31 III, 32, 1.

32 III, 33 f.

33 III, 35, 1.

34 Q. Junius Blaesus (cos. suff. a.d. 10), succeeding L. Apronius (suff. 8), who had a triennial tenure, and to be replaced, after two years, by P. Cornelius Dolabella (cos. 10).

35 cf. G. H. Walther's note—‘virum Tiberius quaerebat gnarum militiae et bello suffecturum’, etc. He had duly cited Velleius in support of ‘M. Lepidum’ in 1, 13, 2. He therefore altered the text in III, 35, 2, printing ‘M'. Lepidum’.

35a cf. F. Münzer, P-W XIV, 1147.

36 For unusual praenomina, and for the writing out of praenomina in full, see JRS XXXVIII (1948), 124 f.Google Scholar, in comment on H. Fuchs' text of Ann. 1–VI (Editiones Helveticae, 1946). Fuchs introduces a consistent system of abbreviation, obscuring indications in the Codex Mediceus that might be valuable: thus ‘M. Lepidum’ in III, 35, 2, instead of ‘Marcum Lepidum’, and ‘M'. Lepido fratre’ in in, 22, 1, for ‘Manio Lepido fratre’.

37 III, 22. 1.

38 They will affect PIR 2 A 363; 369; 422. Also two recent lists of the proconsuls of Asia, those produced by S. J. de Laet, De Samenstelling van den Romeinschen Senaat (1941) 240, and by Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor II (1950), 1581Google Scholar.

39 III, 35, 2.

40 Prosecuted and condemned in 22 (III, 66 ff.).

41 III, 58 f., cf. 71, 2f.

42 IV, 36, 3.

43 CIL III, 398 = 7089, attests M'. Aemilius M'. f. Pal. Proculus, the praefectus fabrum of a M'. Lepidus. Disallowed, on inadequate grounds, by Magie, o.c. 1362 f.

44 I, 13, 2, and the seven items registered in n. 30, p. 25 above.

45 II, 48, 1; in, 72, 1 (where most editors insert ‘M.’); VI, 40, 3 (‘pater Lepidus’).

46 He occurs in I, 74, 5, and 11, 35, 1. Note also ‘in sententiam Pisonis’ (1, 79, 4), where he must be intended (despite the doubts of Groag, PIR 2 C 287), for no other Piso has yet been mentioned. If a praenomen has fallen out, it should be ‘Cn.’, not ‘L.’ If ‘L.’, the context would not reveal which of the two homonymous consulars is meant, the pontifex (cos. 15 B.C.) or the augur (cos. 1 B.C.).

47 I, 11, 1.

48 I, 12, 2.

49 I, 13, 1.

50 I, 13, 4: ‘etiam Q. Haterius et Mamercus Scaurus suspicacem animum perstrinxere,’ etc.

51 II, 48, 1 (‘Aemilio Lepido’).

52 III, 11, 2.

53 III, 32; 35.

54 III, 50.

55 III, 72, 1: ‘isdem diebus «M.’ Lepidus ab senatu petivit ut basilicam Pauli, Aemilia monimenta, propria pecunia firmaret ornaretque. erat etiam turn in more publica munificentia.’

56 III, 32, 2.

57 Ovid, , Ex Ponto IV, 15, 15 ff.Google Scholar; 5, 9 ff.

58 III, 72, 2.

59 The descent is from the Sex. Pompeius of Cicero (Brutus 175; Phil. XII, 27), through Sex. Pompeius Sex. f. (cos. 35 B.C.). A Sex. Pompeius Cn. f., suffect consul in 5 B.C., is adduced by R. Hanslik, P-W XXI, 2265. He never existed.

60 IV, 20, 2. cf. Sallust, , Jug. 45, 1Google Scholar: ‘Metellum … magnum et sapientem virum fuisse comperior.’ The author of the Annals nowhere else employs the verb in the deponent form. Observe also, a little farther down, ‘pergere iter,’ cf. Jug. 79, 5. Further, Lepidus in this oration is made to refer to the poet Clutorius Priscus in Sallustian phraseology— ‘studia illi, ut plena vecordiae, ita inania et fluxa sunt’ (III, 50, 3).

61 IV, 20, 3: ‘unde dubitare cogor fato et sorte nascendi, ut cetera, ita priricipum inclinatio in hos offensio in illos, an sit aliquid in nostris consiliis liceatque inter abruptam contumaciam et deforme obsequium pergere iter ambitione ac periculis vacuum.’

62 IV, 56, 3: ‘censuitque Vibius Marsus ut M. Lepido, cui ea provincia obvenerat, supra numerum legaretur, qui templi curam susciperet. et quia Lepidus ipse deligere per modestiam abnuebat, Valerius Naso e praetoriis sorte missus est.’ The Latin and the situation are misunderstood by Magie, who states (o.c. 1362) that the Lepidus in question (whom he identifies with Manius) was ‘chosen by the Senate as a special commissioner to supervise the building of the new provincial temple at Smyrna … but declined the appointment’. He goes on to deny that this Lepidus was proconsul of Asia.

63 Coins of Cotiaeum, BMC, Phrygia 263, nos. 26 f.

64 AE 1934, 87 (cos.), registered by Groag in the addendum to PIR 2 A 369 (III, p. XI).

65 IV, 72, 1. Not noticed by Groag, who, citing the inscr., stated ‘itaque Asiam rexit a. 21–23 p.c’ Magie sought to evade the difficulty by putting M. Lepidus in Asia in 22–4 (o.c. 1581)—or perhaps in 23–5 (o.c. 1363). In vain: a Lepidus certainly went out in 21—‘igitur missus in Asiam’ (III, 32, 2). The operations of this scholar have only confused the problem (cf. n. 62).

66 viz., the commanders in Pannonia, Dalmatia, and the two Germanies.

67 SIG 3 781 (Nysa). He is designated Γν[αί]ῳ Λέντλῳ Αὒϒορι—which is important for identification.

68 His Danubian command (Ann. IV, 44, 1; Florus 11, 28 f.) could be put 9–6 (as consular legate of Moesia), cf. Rom. Rev. 401, instead of a.d. 1–4 (Illyricum), as suggested in JRS XXIV (1934), 125 ffGoogle Scholar.

69 AE 1952, 232 = IRT 346 (the inscr. of his grandson). The proconsulate of L. Aelius Lamia, cos. 3 (AE 1936, 157 = IRT 930; 1940, 69), will be put next, in 15–16: a retardation due no doubt to his service ‘in Germania Illyricoque’ (Velleius 11, 116, 3).

70 The triennium of Vibius Marsus is shown by CIL VIII, 10568; 22786 f. = ILS 9375. In the dedication to the man ‘praefecto fabrum ∣ M. Silani M. f. sexto ∣ Carthaginis’ (ILS 6236: Tibur) the six years may be calendar not proconsular; for the successor of Silanus is C. Rubellius Blandus, proconsul 35–6 (AE 1948, 1 = IRT 330).

71 Dio (LVIII, 23, 5) reports sexennia for Asia and Africa, without names. The sixth year of Petronius is proved by coins of Pergamum (BMC, Mysia 140, nos. 253 f.)—and the fifth has recently emerged on a Caunian dedication to Plautia A. f. (i.e. the ‘Plautia P. Petroni’ of CIL VI, 6866), the proconsul's wife, published by Bean, G. E. in JHS LXXIV (1954), 91 fGoogle Scholar. His tenure is generally assigned to 29–35 (e.g. Magie, o.c. 1581), but there is nothing against 30–6. Petronius was back in Rome in 36, cf. VI, 45, 2 (late in the year), where he is mentioned in the same context as Rubellius Blandus (proconsul of Africa in 35–6, cf. the preceding note).

72 That is, ‘M. Aemilius Q. f. Lepidus,' as a consular son of either the consul of 22 B.C. or of the parent of M’. Lepidus (cos. a.d. 11). A place could perhaps be devised in a.d. 13. For the problems of that year, see Degrassi, A., Epigraphica VIII (1946), 34 ff.Google Scholar; A. E. and Gordon, J. S., AJP LXXII (1951), 283 ffGoogle Scholar. The latter writers argue that the item ‘C. Silius A. Caecina Largus’ should be split into two persons, an ordinarius and a suffectus.

73 If M. Lepidus is accepted as proconsul in 26–8, the list for 20–30 will have to be radically revised. To the attested proconsuls mentioned above (p. 27), add Sex. Pompeius, cos. 14 (Valerius Maximus 11, 6, 8). Perhaps also M. Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messallinus, cos. 20 (Forsch. in Ephesos III, 112, no. 22), though he might belong in 35–6.

74 VI, 40, 3: ‘Aemilia Lepida, quam iuveni Druso nuptam rettuli.’ The item will have been registered in Book v. Drusus was probably born in 7: he assumed the toga virilis at the beginning of 23 (IV, 4, 1). His first betrothed was a daughter ‘vixdum nubilis' of L. Salvius Otho (cos. 33), cf. Suetonius, Otho I, 3. The date of his marriage to Aemilia Lepida is not directly attested; and she could be a younger sister of M. Lepidus’ ‘nubilis filia’ referred to in 21 (III, 35, 2).

75 VI, 5, 1.

76 He had been arrested in 30 (Dio LVIII, 3, 3 f., cf. Ann. VI, 23, 1).

77 VI, 23, 1.

78 VI, 27, 4: ‘obiit eodem anno M. Lepidus de cuius moderatione atque sapientia in prioribus libris satis conlocavi. neque nobilitas diutius demonstranda est: quippe Aemilium genus fecundum bonorum civium, et qui eadem familia corruptis moribus inlustri tamen fortuna egere.’

79 VI, 48, 3: ‘documento sequentia erunt bene Arruntium morte usum.’ The sentence has been condemned as an interpolation by a recent editor.

80 I, 13, 1. He was an orator of distinction (XI, 7, 2): not mentioned by the elder Seneca, presumably because still among the living.

81 I, 13, 1.

82 The younger Agrippina would be eager to demonstrate in her memoirs that Tiberius was not at all the necessary and inevitable successor to Augustus.

83 How explain the inconsistency? Tacitus, penning I, 13, 2, did not know much about the subsequent history of Tiberius' reign (Reitzenstein, R., Neue Wege zur Antike IV (1926), 30)Google Scholar; or he forgot what he had there written (Löfstedt, E., JRS XXXVIII (1948), 6)Google Scholar. A different explanation offers—the passage is a later addition by the author. Inserted between the first pair of speakers (Gallus and Arruntius) and the second (Haterius and Scaurus), it interrupts the debate. (The insertion probably begins, not with ‘quippe Augustus’, but with the preceding sentence describing Arruntius— ‘sed divitem promptum’, etc.)

84 III, 13, 1.

85 VI, 27, 3 (under 33), cf. Dio LVIII, 8, 3. He was probably appointed in 23 or 24.

86 Velleius II, 114, 5.

87 VI, 40, 3, cf. above, n. 74.

88 Suetonius, Galba 5, 1. Perhaps the daughter who was ‘nubilis’ in 21 (III, 35, 2). There is no point in adducing an unattested daughter of M'. Lepidus.

89 VI, 20, 2: ‘et tu, Galba, quandoque degustabis imperium.’

90 The parentage of this Lepidus (PIR 2 A 371) is nowhere explicitly attested. A year or two younger than Caligula (born in 12), he could easily be one of the children of M. Lepidus referred to in 21 (III, 35, 2).

91 Agr. 42, 5.

92 Agr. 44, 5: ‘durare in hanc beatissimi saeculi lucem ac principem Traianum videre, quod augurio votisque apud nostras auris ominabatur.’

93 Let it be added in postscript that ‘capaces imperii' acquired sensational value twenty years later when, in the first year of Hadrian, four eminent consulars were executed for conspiracy. The incident may have impelled Tacitus to insert the (highly questionable) anecdote about Augustus’ assessment of the three principes (cf. above, n. 83). I deal with this matter elsewhere.