CASSIUS, the name of a distinguished ancient Roman family, originally patrician. Its most important members are the fol lowing : I. SPURIUS CAssIUs, surnamed Vecellinus (Vicellinus, Viscel linus), three times consul, and author of the first agrarian law. In his first consulate (502 B.c.) he defeated the Sabines; in his second (493) he renewed the league with the Latins, and dedicated the temple of Ceres in the Circus; in his third (486) he made a treaty with the conquered Hernici. His agrarian law was clearly intended to benefit the needy plebeians (see AGRARIAN LAWS), and was violently opposed both by the patricians and by the wealthy plebe ians. Cassius was condemned and executed. According to Livy, his proposal to bestow a share of the land upon the Latins was regarded with great suspicion. According to Mommsen (Romische Forschungen, ii), the whole story is an invention of a later age, founded upon the proposals of the Gracchi and M. Livius Drusus, to which period belongs the idea of sharing public land with the Latins.
The following Cassii are all plebeians. It is suggested that the sons of Spurius Cassius either were expelled from, or voluntarily left, the patrician order, in consequence of their father's execution.
2. GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS, consul 73 B.C. With his colleague, Terentius Varro Lucullus, he passed a law (lex Terentia Cassia), the object of which was to give authority for the purchase of corn at the public expense, to be retailed at a fixed price at Rome.
3. GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS, prime mover in the conspiracy against Julius Caesar. In 53 B.c. he served in the Parthian cam paign under M. Licinius Crassus, saved the remnants of the army after the defeat at Carrhae, and for two years successfully repelled the enemy. In 49 B.C. he became tribune of the plebs. The out break of the civil war saved him from being brought to trial for extortion in Syria. He at first commanded part of Pompey's fleet. After Pharsalus he became reconciled to Caesar, who made him one of his legates. In 44 B.C. he became praetor peregrinus with the promise of the Syrian province for the ensuing year; yet he was one of the leading conspirators against Caesar, taking an active part in the actual assassination. In September he left Italy for Syria, where he raised a considerable army, and defeated P. Cor nelius Dolabella, to whom the province had been assigned by the senate. On the formation of the triumvirate, Brutus and he, with their combined armies, crossed the Hellespont, marched through Thrace, and encamped near Philippi in Macedonia. Their inten tion was to starve out the enemy, but they were forced into an engagement. Brutus was successful against Octavian, but Cassius, defeated by M. Antonius (Mark Antony), gave up all for lost, and ordered his freedman to slay him.
4. QUINTUS CASSIUS LONGINUS, the brother or cousin of the murderer of Caesar, quaestor of Pompey in Further Spain in 54 B.C. In 49, as tribune of the people, he supported the cause of Caesar, by whom he was made governor of Further Spain. His oppression of the provincials led to an unsuccessful insurrection at Corduba. Cassius punished the leaders with merciless severity, and made the lot of the provincials harder than ever. At last some of his troops revolted and proclaimed the quaestor M. Marcellus, governor of the province. The king of Mauretania and the pro consul of Hither Spain, to whom Cassius had applied for assistance, arranged with Marcellus that Cassius should go free with the legions that remained loyal to him. Cassius sent his troops into winter quarters and took ship at Malaca, but was wrecked at the mouth of the Ebro. His tyrannical government of Spain had greatly injured the cause of Caesar.