Laenas

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Laenas, the name of a plebeian family in ancient Rome, notorious for cruelty and arrogance. The two most famous of the name are: Gaius Popillius Laenas, consul in 172 BC. He was sent to Greece in 174 BC to allay the general disaffection, but met with little success. He took part in the war against Perseus, king of Macedonia (Livy xliii.17, 22). When Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, invaded Egypt, Laenas was sent to arrest his progress. Meeting him near Alexandria, he handed him the decree of the Senate, demanding the evacuation of Egypt. Antiochus having asked time for consideration, Laenas drew a circle round him with his staff, and told him he must give an answer before he stepped out of it. Antiochus thereupon submitted (Livy xlv.12; Polybius xxix.11; Cicero, Philippica, viii.8; Velleius Paterculus i.10). Publius Popillius Laenas, son of the preceding. When consul in 132 BC he incurred the hatred of the democrats by his harsh measures as head of a special commission appointed to take measures against the accomplices of Tiberius Gracchus. In 123 BC Gaius Gracchus brought in a bill prohibiting all such commissions, and declared that, in accordance with the old laws of appeal, a magistrate who pronounced sentence of death against a citizen, without the people's assent, should be guilty of high treason. It is not known whether the bill contained a retrospective clause against Laenas, but he left Rome and sentence of banishment from Italy was pronounced against him. After the restoration of the aristocracy the enactments against him were cancelled, and he was recalled. See Cicero, Brutus, 25.34, and De domo sua, 31; Vell. Pat. ii.7; Plutarch, C. Gracchus, 4). The name is said by Cicero to be derived from laena, the sacerdotal cloak carried by Marcus Popillius (consul 359 BC) when he went to the Forum to quell a popular rising.

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