The gens Laelia was a plebeian family at Rome. The first of the gens to obtain the consulship was Gaius Laelius in 190 BC.
Branches and cognomina
The only family name of the Laelii was Balbus, a common cognomen, referring to one who stammers. A few of the Laelii used personal surnames, such as Sapiens ("wise"), by which the Laelius who was a friend of the younger Scipio Africanus was sometimes known.
This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.
Gaius Laelius, grandfather of the consul of 190 BC.
Gaius Laelius C. f., father of the consul.
Gaius Laelius C. f. C. n., consul in 190 BC, was a friend of the elder Scipio Africanus, to whom he acted as legate throughout the Second Punic War. After his consulship, he helped colonize the territory of the Boii. He was appointed to several other commissions and embassies through 170.
Gaius Laelius C. f. C. n. Sapiens, consul in BC 140, and a close friend of the younger Scipio Africanus. He initially favoured agrarian reform, but after meeting resistance abandoned the effort, and opposed the efforts of the Gracchi, leading his aristocratic contemporaries to call him Sapiens, "the wise". He was erudite and refined, but a less persuasive speaker than some of his contemporaries.
Laelia C. f. C. n. Major, married Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the augur. Laelia was renowned for her graceful and eloquent speech, dignified and sincere, upon which Cicero remarked, and which she passed down to her daughters, as well as her son-in-law, the orator Lucius Licinius Crassus.
Laelia C. f. C. n. Minor, married Gaius Fannius Strabo.
Laelius Balbus.
Decimus Laelius, one of Pompeius' lieutenants during the Sertorian War, who was slain in battle against Lucius Hirtuleius near the town of Lauro in 76 BC.
Decimus Laelius (D. f.), impeached Lucius Valerius Flaccus for repetundae in his administration of Asia, BC 59. During the Civil War, Laelius was a loyal commander and emissary in the Pompeian forces.
Decimus Laelius D. f. D. n. Balbus, one of the quindecimvirs who oversaw the ludi saeculares in 17 BC; he was consul in 6 BC.
Laelius Balbus, a delator during the reign of Tiberius, accused Acutia, formerly the wife of Publius Vitellius the Younger, of majestas; she was condemned, but the tribune of the plebs Junius Otho prevented him from receiving a reward. Shortly thereafter, Balbus was himself condemned and banished, as one of the lovers of Albucilla.
Laelius Felix, a jurist in the time of Hadrian.
