Lepidus was elected consul for the year 78 BC. According to Plutarch, this was with the support of Pompey, who canvassed for him against the wishes of Sulla, who did not trust Lepidus. When Sulla died in the same year, Lepidus tried to prevent the body from being buried in state on the Campus Martius. Pompey intervened and ensured a state funeral for the late dictator. Lepidus gathered the remnants of the weakened Marian faction (see Sulla's first and Sulla's second civil war), and those who had escaped Sulla's proscriptions.