Popi'llia Gens
plebeian.
In manuscripts the name is sometimes written with one
l, and sometimes with two; but as it always appears with a double
l in the Capitoline Fasti, this form is to be preferred.
There are no coins to decide the question; for those which Goltzins has published, are spurious. The Popillia gens is one of the great plebeian gentes that rose into eminence after the passing of the Licinian laws, which threw open the consulship to the plebeian order.
The first member of it who obtained the consulship was M. Popillius Laenas, in B. C. 359, and he was the first plebeian who obtained the honour of a triumph.
The only family of the Popillii mentioned under the republic, is that of LAENAS : the majority of the few Popillii, who occur without a surname, and who are given below, may have belonged to the same family, and their cognomen is probably omitted through inadvertence.
