His deposition, which must come in the natural course of things, is mentioned only casually and contemptuously:
Caesar, having made use of him in the wars ’gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality: would not let him partake in the glory of the action: and not resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey: upon his own appeal, seizes him: so the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.
(III. v. 7.)
Accused of letters written to Pompey! So he had been at his old work, buttering his bread on both sides. His suppression is one of the grievances Antony has against Caesar, who has appropriated his colleague’s revenue; and it is interesting to note the defence that Caesar, who never chooses his grounds at random, gives for his apparent arbitrariness:
I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel;
That he his high authority abused,
And did deserve his change.
(III. vi. 32.)
So this friend of all the world may be accused of inhumanity and misrule. The charge is plausible. Shakespeare could not here forget that at the proscription, Lepidus is represented as acquiescing in the death of his own brother-in-law to secure the death of Antony’s nephew. Still his alleged cruelty may only have been a specious pretext on Octavius’ part to screen his own designs, and even to transfer his own offences to another man’s shoulders. Pompey says, in estimating the chances of his venture,
Caesar gets money where