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LAENAS

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 63 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LAENAS , the name of a plebeian See also:

family in See also:ancient See also:Rome, notorious for See also:cruelty and arrogance. The two most famous of the name' are: See also:GAIL'S PoPILLIus LAENAS, See also:consul in 172 B.C. He was sent to See also:Greece in 174 to allay the See also:general disaffection, but met with little success. He took See also:part in the See also:war against See also:Perseus, See also:king of See also:Macedonia (See also:Livy xliii. 17, 22). When See also:Antiochus Epiphanes, king of See also:Syria, invaded See also:Egypt, Laenas was sent to See also:arrest his progress. See also:Meeting him near See also:Alexandria, he handed him the See also:decree of the See also:senate, demanding the evacuation of Egypt. Antiochus having asked See also:time for See also:consideration, Laenas See also:drew a circle See also:round him with his See also:staff, and told him he must give an See also:answer before he stepped out of it. Antiochus thereupon submitted (Livy xlv. 12; See also:Polybius See also:xxix. 11; See also: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 See also:

measures as See also:head of a See also:special See also:commission appointed to take measures against the accomplices of Tiberius See also:Gracchus. In 123 See also:Gaius Gracchus brought in a See also:bill prohibiting all such commissions, and declared that, in accordance with the old See also:laws of See also:appeal, a See also:magistrate who pronounced See also:sentence of See also:death ' The name is said by Cicero to be derived from laena, the sacerdotal cloak carried by See also:Marcus Popillius (consul 359) when he went to the See also:forum to quell a popular rising.-See also:LAETUS 63 against a See also:citizen, without the See also:people's assent, should be guilty of high See also:treason. It is not known whether the bill contained a retrospective clause against Laenas, but he See also:left Rome and sentence of banishment from See also:Italy was pronounced against him. After the restoration of the See also:aristocracy the enactments against him were cancelled, and he was recalled (12r). See Cicero, See also:Brutus, 25. 34, and De domo sua, 31; Vell. Pat. ii. 7; See also:Plutarch, C. Gracchus, 4.

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