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Marcus Popillius Laenas (consul 139 BC)

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

Family

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

Career

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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

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  1. ^ Polybius, History, XXXVIII, 12
  2. ^ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliothēkē historikē, 33,19
  3. ^ Charles Ludwig Elvers, The New Pauly's Encyclopedia of Classical Antiquity, Vol. 10, p.147
  4. ^ Cassius Dio, XXII, 75, 1