Marcus Popilius Laenas was a Roman politician in the second century BC.

Family[edit]

He was a member of gens Popilia. His father was Marcus Popilius Laenas, consul in 173 BC.

Career[edit]

In 154 BC, Laenas was sent as an ambassador to Liguria to investigate the accusations of the residents of the allied city of Massalia against the Ligurians of depredations and raids.^[1] In 146 BC, as part of an embassy to Corinth, Laenas was beaten up by a seditious crowd. This prompted Lucius Mummius to sack the city later that year in the Achaean War.^[2]

In 139 BC, he was elected consul together with Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso as his colleague. He took the province of Hispania Citerior and remained proconsul until 137 BC.^[3] There he unsuccessfully attempted to end the insurrection led by Viriathus, a Lusitanian chieftain that had defeated his consular predecessor.^[4]

References[edit]