The Revolt of Lepidus
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was elected consul in 78 BC on a promise to undo Sulla's settlement and marched on Rome the following year. Sulla had died that year, having spent two years as dictator rewriting the constitution: the tribunes stripped of their power to legislate and their holders barred from further office, the senate doubled and given the courts, the corn dole abolished, and thousands proscribed with their land confiscated and given to his veterans. Lepidus had grown rich on those confiscations and then ran against them, which was noticed at the time. He was elected with Quintus Lutatius Catulus, a firm Sullan, and Sulla himself is said to have remarked that Pompey — who had backed Lepidus — should now look out for the rival he had raised. He was sent to Etruria to suppress unrest among farmers dispossessed for the veteran settlements, and raised them instead. The senate recalled both consuls and made them swear not to fight each other. Lepidus wintered in Etruria, demanded a second consulship, the restoration of the tribunate and the recall of the proscribed, and marched. Catulus met him outside Rome at the Milvian Bridge in 77 BC and beat him; Pompey took Mutina in the north. Lepidus escaped to Sardinia with the remnant and died there within months, of illness or, by one account, of grief at a letter. Perperna took the survivors to Spain and joined Sertorius, whom he later murdered. Pompey was given the Spanish command he wanted. His son was the triumvir who governed beside Octavian and Antony.
- Year: 78 BCE
- Category: Political
