he agreed to give Lepidus back his old territories in Spain and Gaul, which should legally have been his according to the Lex Titia. Octavian accused Lepidus of attempting to usurp power and fomenting rebellion. Humiliatingly, Lepidus' legions in Sicily defected to Octavian and Lepidus himself was forced to submit to him. On 22 September 36, Lepidus was stripped of all his offices except that of Pontifex Maximus; Octavian then confined him to Circeii. After the defeat of Antony in 31 BC, Lepidus' son Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Minor became involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Octavian, but the plot was discovered by Gaius Maecenas. The younger Lepidus was executed, but the former triumvir himself was left unmolested. His wife Junia was, however, implicated. Lepidus had to plead with his former enemy Lucius Saenius Balbinus to grant her bail. Spending the rest of his life in relative obscurity, Lepidus was apparently obliged to return to Rome periodically to participate in Senate business. Octavian, now known as "Augustus", is said to have belittled him by always asking for his vote last. Lepidus died peacefully in late 13, upon which Augustus was elected to the position of Pontifex Maximus on 6 March 12 BC; afterwards, the chief priest's office was moved from the Regia to Augustus' palace, located on the Palatine Hill in Rome. Reputation Lepidus's biographer Richard D. Weigel says that he has been typically caricatured by both ancient and modern historians as "weak, indecisive, fickle, disloyal and incompetent". Cicero condemned Lepidus for "wickedness and sheer folly" after Lepidus allowed his forces to join with Mark Antony's after Antony's initial defeat at the Battle of Mutina. Cicero also privately suggested that Lepidus' wife, Junia, had been unfaithful to him. Decimus Brutus called him a "weathercock", and Velleius Paterculus called him "the most fickle of mankind" and incapable of command. According to Cassius Dio, while Mark Antony and Octavian were away from Rome fighting Brutus and Cassius, Lepidus was nominally in control of the city, but Mark Antony's wife, Fulvia, was the real power. Dio wrote, "She, the mother-in‑law of Octavian and wife of Antony, had no respect for Lepidus because of his slothfulness, and managed affairs herself, so that neither the senate nor the people transacted any business contrary to her pleasure". Such views are reflected in Shakespeare's portrayal of Lepidus in Julius Caesar in which Antony describes him as "a slight,