À qui profitait la conjuration de Lucilla ? Réflexions sur un passage des Caesares de Julien

Who would have benefited from Lucilla's conspiracy ? Reflexions on a passage of the Caesars of Julian. The circumstances of the conspiracy that Lucilla, the second daughter of Marcus Aurelius, hatched against her brother Commodus at the beginning of his reign are relatively well-known, thanks to the joint testimonies of Cassius Dio, Herodian and the Historia Augusta. However, we do not clearly understand whom she wanted to make emperor in his place. Her accomplices, Claudius Pompeianus Quintianus and M. Ummidius Quadratus, although members of the imperial family, could not have passed for credible pretenders in the eyes of the senators and amid of Marcus Aurelius, who supported the plot. Julian, in a curious passage of the Caesars, blames Marcus for having given power to his son, when his son-in-law Claudius Pompeianus, husband of Lucilla, was perfectly able to govern. It is thus probable that, despite the denials or silences of historiography, Lucilla wanted to replace her brother with her husband because this was the easiest way for her to regain her former rank and to take possession of the Empire in favour of her descendants.