Laenas

Laenas (plural, Laenates) was the name of a plebeian noble family in ancient Rome, notorious for cruelty and arrogance in the 2nd century BC. The name is said by Cicero to be derived from laena, the sacerdotal cloak carried by Marcus Popillius Laenas (consul 359 BC) when he went to the Forum to quell a popular rising. The family Laenas is therefore a branch of the family Popilli, but the only branch which rose to the consulship.