after she had lost this powerful protection, by his death, in a. d. 33, she was accused in a. d. 36 of having had adulterous intercourse with a slave ; and as she could not deny the charge, she put an end to her life. (Tac. Ann. vi. 40.)
LE'PIDUS, the name of a celebrated family of the Aemilia gens, which was one of the most ancient patrician gentes. [Aemilia Gens.] This family first occurs in Roman history at the beginning of the third century before the Christian era, and from that time it became one of the most distinguished in the state. Finally, it became connected by marriage with the imperial house of the Caesars, but disappears towards the end of the first century of the Christian era. The following genealogical table is in some parts conjectural, but these are pointed out in the course of the article. (Comp. Perizonius, Animad. Hist. p. 131 ; Norisius, Cenot. Pis. p. 257, &c. ; Eckhel, vol. v. p. 123 ; Clement. Cardinal. Memorie Romane di Antichità, vol. i. p. 182 ; Orelli, Onom. Tull. vol. ii. p. 15; Drumann Gesch. Roms, vol. i. p. 1, &c.)
1. M. Aemilius Lepidus, consul b. c. 285, but whose name only occurs in the Fasti.
2. M. Aemilius M. f. M. n. Lepidus, probably a grandson of No. 1, was augur and twice consul. He died in the year of the battle of Cannae, b. c. 216 ; and his three sons exhibited in his honour funeral games which lasted for three days, and in which twenty-two pairs of gladiators fought in the forum. (Liv. xxiii. 30.) His first consulship was in b. c. 232, when the agrarian law of C. Flaminius was passed (Polyb. ii. 21 ; Zonar. viii. p. 401, c) ; but the date of his second
