Marcus Popillius Laenas (consul 139 BC)
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
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