He was suffect consul in the second half of AD 33 as the colleague of Lucius Salvius Otho.
[2] Octavius Laenas is important for genealogical reasons, as Ronald Syme explains.
He was the son of another Octavius Laenas, who is otherwise unattested, and Sergia "presumed a daughter of the patrician L. Sergius Plautus".
The younger Laenas married Rubellia Bassa, the daughter of his maternal cousin Gaius Rubellius Blandus, suffect consul in 18.
That Blandus was married, either before or after the birth of Rubellia, to Julia Livia, great-granddaughter of the emperor Tiberius, which aligned Laenas with the ruling Julio-Claudian dynasty.