unmeritable man, meant to be sent on errands", comparable to a donkey required to bear burdens. In Antony and Cleopatra he is portrayed as extremely gullible, asking Antony silly questions about Egypt while very drunk. Antony taunts him with an elaborately nonsensical description of a Nile crocodile. After Lepidus's fall from power, he is referred to as the "poor third" and "fool Lepidius". Modern writers have often been equally dismissive. Ronald Syme called him "a flimsy character...perfidious and despised". Weigel argues that these views are coloured by evidence that was in large part politically motivated, and that Lepidus's career was no more perfidious or inconsistent than that of the other major players in the power struggles at the time. Léonie Hayne says that he acted "skillfully and consistently in support of Antony and (indirectly) of the Caesarian faction". She also argues that his power bid over Sicily was logical and justifiable. Alain Gowing has also argued that his actions in Sicily, though "futile", were no more than an "attempt to regain a position from which he had been unfairly thrust". Fictional depictions Despite his role as "a slight, unmeritable man" in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and as a rambling drunk in Antony and Cleopatra, other Renaissance-era writers portrayed Lepidus in a more positive way. Caspar Brülow's Latin play Caius Julius Caesar depicts Lepidus as Caesar's loyal ally, warning him against conspiracies and later planning revenge on his killers. Georges de Scudéry's La Mort de César portrays him in a similar light, warning Caesar, and later working closely with Antony, who refers to him as "sage et prudent Lépide". In Pierre Corneille's Mort de Pompée his is a non-speaking role, simply presented as one of Caesar's entourage of officers. Lepidus appears in several 18th century French plays, such as Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon's Le Triumvirat, ou la mort de Cicéron, in which he attempts to save Cicero's life, and is portrayed as a conflicted figure, who respects traditional Roman values, but is unable to resist the will of his colleagues. Cicero rejects compromise, but Lepidus is too weak to do so. Voltaire's Le Triumvirat refers to Lepidus as a pawn, merely used by Antony and Octavian. Lepidus appears in a number of novels. He is the principal character of Alfred Duggan's 1958 historical novel Three's Company. As the novel's title implies, it is centered on the second triumvirate, but relates the period