Aemilia Lepida (fiancee of Claudius)
- For other women with this name, see Aemilia Lepida.
Aemilia Lepida (5 BC – c. 43 AD) was a noble Roman woman and matron. She was the eldest daughter and first-born child of Julia the Younger (the first granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus) and consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus. Her father was of a distinguished and ancient patrician family. She was the first great-grandchild of Emperor Augustus, noblewoman Scribonia and a great-grandchild of consul Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus (brother of the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus). Aemilia Lepida was the cousin of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (6-39) who was married to Caligula's favorite sister Drusilla and who was executed in Caligula's reign.[1]
In her younger years, Lepida was betrothed to Claudius, but her parents fell out of favour with Augustus so the emperor broke off the engagement. In 8, her mother Julia the Younger (otherwise called Vipsania Julia) was exiled for adultery, like her mother Julia. Her father Lucius was executed in 14 for participating in a conspiracy against Augustus.
By AD 13, Lepida had married Marcus Junius Silanus Torquatus, a member of the patrician branch of the ancient gens Junia. Their children were:
- Marcus Junius Silanus Torquatus (AD 14-54), consul in 46, put to death in order to ensure the succession of Nero, and to prevent him from avenging the death of his brother, Lucius.
- Junia Calvina (fl. AD 79), married Lucius Vitellius, a brother of the future emperor Vitellius. Accused of incest with her youngest brother, she was exiled by Claudius, only to be recalled ten years later by the emperor Nero.
- Decimus Junius Silanus Torquatus (d. AD 64), consul in 53, forced by Nero to commit suicide after being accused of boasting of his descent from Augustus.
- Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus (d. AD 49), praetor in 48, he was engaged to Octavia, daughter of Claudius. Agrippina spread a rumor that he had committed incest with his sister, as a result of which he was expelled from the Senate and deprived of his office. He committed suicide on the day that Claudius and Agrippina were married.
- Junia Lepida who married Gaius Cassius Longinus, and raised her nephew Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus the younger (50-66) after his father, Marcus, was murdered.[2]
The time of her death is not known. She is sometimes said to have been poisoned on the orders of Agrippina the Younger during the reign of Nero, but this Lepida was evidently Domitia Lepida, the mother of Valeria Messalina and the second wife of Appius Junius Silanus.
See also
Sources
- Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum, Claudius, 26.
- Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales.