LAENAS  , the name of a plebeian

family in ancient Rome, notorious for cruelty and arrogance . The two most famous of the name' are: GAIL'S PoPILLIus LAENAS, consul in 172 B.C . He was sent to Greece in 174 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; Vell .

Pat. i . 1o) . PuBL1us PoPILL1us LAENAS, son of the preceding . When consul in 132 B.C. 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 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 ' The name is said by Cicero to be derived from laena, the sacerdotal cloak carried by Marcus Popillius (consul 359) when he went to the forum to quell a popular rising.-LAETUS 63 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 (12r) . See Cicero, Brutus, 25 . 34, and De domo sua, 31; Vell . Pat. ii . 7; Plutarch, C . Gracchus, 4 .