Lepidus

Family: Triumvirate · Role: ruler · First appears: Julius Caesar · Act III, Scene III

Lepidus is a ruler of the Triumvirate. In Julius Caesar, Mark Antony treats him as a patron and employer, calling him “ANTONY. This is a slight unmeritable man, Meet to be sent on errands” and sending him to fetch Julius Caesar’s will. He then joins Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar in the proscriptions that kill Cicero and many senators, making him an enemy of Cicero.

In Antony and Cleopatra, Lepidus works with Octavius Caesar to assemble a council and prepare against Sextus Pompeius, but Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar are also described as his enemies and rivals. He is included among the three world-sharers whom Menas proposes to kill, while he is later described as flattering both triumvirs without loving or caring for either: “Lepidus flatters both, Of both is flattered; but he neither loves Nor either cares for him.” He is nevertheless said to love Octavius Caesar and adore Mark Antony, before Octavius Caesar seizes and confines him until death.