A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

a senator at the time of the Catilinarian conspiracy, B. C. 63 (Sal. Cat. 30). We find in the Fasti one of the consules suffecti for B. C. 30, with the name of L. Saenius, who was probably the sane person as the senator. Appian says B. C. 4.50), that a certain Balbinus was consul in B. C. 30, in which year the conspiracy of the younger Lepidus was detected by Maecenas. Now as the Fasti do not mention a consul of the name of Balbinus, it has been conjectured with much probability that Balbinus was the cognomen of L. Saenius. Appian further states (l.c.) that Balbinus was proscribed by the triumvirs in B. C. 43, and restored with Sex. Pompey. The senatusconsultum, by which Augustus made a number of persons patricians, is called Lex Saenia by Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 11.25). Dio Cassius (52.42) speaks of the addition to the patricians as taking place in B. C. 29, but the name of the Lex Saenia shows that the authority of the senate was obtained at the latter end of the preceding year in the consulship of Saenius.