Aemilia Lepida (fiancee of Claudius)
For other women with this name, see Aemilia Lepida.
Aemilia Lepida (5 BC-?) 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, noble woman Scribonia and a great-grandchild of consul Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus (brother of the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus). Aemilia Lepida had a younger brother named Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (6-39) who was married to Caligula's favorite sister Drusilla and who died in Caligula's reign.
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.
Lepida married by 13 Marcus Junius Silanus, a member of the patrician branch of the ancient gens Junia, who was consul in 19 AD.[1] Their children were:
- Marcus Junius Silanus (14-by November, 54), who was consul in 46.
- Junia Calvina (died after 79) who married Lucius Vitellius the Younger (killed in 69), a brother of the future Roman Emperor Vitellius and was divorced by 49. She was accused of incest with her youngest brother, sent into exile by Emperor Claudius and recalled ten years later by Emperor Nero after he killed his own mother.
- Decimus Junius Silanus Torquatus (d. 64, forced to commit suicide) who was consul in 53.
- Lucius Junius Silanus the Elder (committed suicide on New Year's Day, 49), praetor in 48 who was engaged to Claudius's daughter Claudia Octavia until Agrippina the Younger spread false rumors about his alleged incest with his sister Junia Calvina.
- 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.