Cassia gens

Denarius of Gaius Cassius Longinus, 126 BC. Roma is depicted on the obverse, with a voting urn behind. The reverse shows Libertas holding a pileus and driving a chariot. Both the urn and Libertas refer to the Lex Tabellaria passed by his uncle Longinus Ravilla as tribune of the plebs in 137.

A possible clue to the origin of the Cassii is the cognomen Viscellinus or Vecellinus, borne by the first of this gens to appear in history. It appears to be derived from the town of Viscellium or Vescellium, a settlement of the Hirpini, which is mentioned by Titus Livius in connection with the Second Punic War. The town was one of three captured by the praetor Marcus Valerius Laevinus after they had revolted in 215 BC. Its inhabitants, the Viscellani, are also mentioned by Pliny the Elder. This suggests the possibility that the ancestors of the Cassii were from Hirpinum, or had some other connection with Viscellium. The existence of a substantial estate of the Cassii in Hirpinum at a later time further supports such a connection.[2][3]

Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, thrice consul at the beginning of the Republic, has traditionally been regarded as a patrician, in part because all of the consuls before 366 BC were supposed to have been patricians. The previous year saw the passage of the lex Licinia Sextia, formally permitting the plebeians to stand for the consulship. However, scholars have long suspected that a number of consuls bearing traditionally plebeian names during the nearly century and a half before this law were in fact plebeians, and that the original intent of the lex Licinia Sextia was not to open the consulship to the plebeians, but to require the election of a plebeian consul each year, although this was not permanently achieved for a number of years after its passage. Viscellinus may thus have been a plebeian, who made enemies of the patricians through his efforts at agrarian reform, and his proposed treaty with Rome's allies during his last consulship.[4]

However, this point cannot be definitely settled. Many patrician families had plebeian branches, and it was common for families to vanish into obscurity for decades or even centuries, before returning to prominence in the Roman state. Patricians could also be expelled from their order, or voluntarily go over to the plebeians; but few examples are known. It may be that the sons of Viscellinus were expelled from the patriciate in lieu of being executed, or that they chose to pass over to the plebeians following their father's betrayal and murder.[4][1]

From the imagery on their coins, it appears that the Cassii had a special devotion to the Aventine Triad of Ceres, Liber, and Libera, for whom Spurius Cassius Viscellinus built a temple on the Aventine Hill in 494. Libertas, a goddess associated with Liber and Libera, also features regularly on their coins. She was later the emblem of the Liberatores during the Civil War led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Brutus against Octavian and Mark Antony.

The principal names of the Cassii during the Republic were Lucius, Gaius, and Quintus. The praenomen Spurius is known only from Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, at the very beginning of the Republic, while Marcus appears in the first century BC.

The chief family of the Cassii in the time of the Republic bears the name of Longinus. The other cognomina during this time are Parmensis, Sabaco, Varus, and Viscellinus. One of the earliest Roman historians was Lucius Cassius Hemina, whose cognomen—unique in Roman history—comes from a unit of measure of about half a pint, or a quarter litre, perhaps an allusion to his short stature.[5] A number of other surnames are found from the final century of the Republic onwards.[1] The famous censor Lucius Cassius Longinus also used the agnomen Ravilla. A single Caecianus is known; his cognomen shows that he or an ancestor was adopted from the gens Caecia. He might have been related to the Longini as he pictured Ceres on the coins he minted.

This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.

Denarius of Lucius Cassius Longinus, 78 BC. Liber is depicted on the obverse, Libera on the reverse. They allude to the Temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera built by Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, and to the Lex Tabellaria of 137.

Others

Denarius of Lucius Cassius Caecianus, 102 BC. On the obverse is Ceres, while the reverse shows a yoke of oxen, an allegory of agriculture.

• Lucius Cassius Hemina, a historian of the second century BC.
• Gaius Cassius, military tribune in 168 BC, entrusted by the praetor Lucius Anicius Gallus with the custody of the Illyrian king Gentius.[35]
• Lucius Cassius Caecianus, triumvir monetalis in 102 BC.[36]
• Gaius Cassius, praetor about 90 BC.[37]
• Lucius Cassius, proconsul in Asia in 90 BC, captured the following year by Mithradates.
• Marcus Cassius M. f., a senator in 73 BC and possibly a praetor in an uncertain year before.[38][39]
• Marcus Cassius Scaeva, a centurion in Caesar's army at the Battle of Dyrrhachium, and later one of Caesar's partisans.
• Cassius Dionysius, a native of Utica, and an agricultural writer, who translated the work of the Carthaginian Mago.
• Cassius Barba, a friend of Caesar, who gave Cicero guards for his villa, when Caesar paid him a visit in 44 BC.[40]
• Cassius Etruscus, an author ridiculed by Quintus Horatius Flaccus, sometimes confused with Cassius Parmensis.
• Cassius Parmensis, tribunus militum in the army of Brutus and Cassius, put to death by Octavianus.
• Cassius Betillinus, apparently an error for Betilienus Bassus.
• Cassius Severus, a celebrated orator and satirical writer, in the time of Augustus and Tiberius.
• Gaius Cassius Chaerea, tribune of the Praetorian Guard under Caligula, against whom he conspired and whom he helped to assassinate, with the intent of restoring the Republic.
• Quintus Cassius Gratus, governor of Crete and Cyrenaica during the reign of Claudius.
• Cassius Asclepiodotus, a wealthy man of Bithynia, exiled by Nero, but subsequently restored by Galba.
• Cassius Felix, also called Cassius Iatrosophista, author of a medical treatise, Quaestiones Medicae et Problemata Naturalia.
• Publius Cassius Dexter, quaestor in 138.[41]
• Avidius Cassius, a successful general under Marcus Aurelius, against whom he subsequently rebelled.
• Cassius Apronianus, governor of Dalmatia and Cilicia, father of the historian Cassius Dio.[42]
  

  Aureus of Gaius Cassius Longinus, the tyrannicide, 42 BC. The obverse features Libertas, patron goddess of the Cassii and the Liberatores. The tripod is a reference to his position of quindecimvir sacris faciundis.[43]
• Cassius Clemens, brought to trial circa AD 195, for having espoused the side of Gaius Pescennius Niger, defended himself with such dignity that Septimius Severus granted him his life and allowed him to retain half his property.[44]
• Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus, or Dion Cassius, a senator, was consul circa AD 205, and again in 229, as the colleague of the emperor Severus Alexander. He was the author of a monumental history of Rome.[42]
• Cassius Dio, consul in AD 291, perhaps the grandson of the historian.[42][45]

• List of Roman gentes

• Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, In Catilinam, Philippicae, Pro Plancio, Pro Sulla.
• Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Bellum Catilinae (The Conspiracy of Catiline).
• Aulus Hirtius, De Bello Alexandrino (On the Alexandrine War).
• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities).
• Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome.
• Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History.
• Quintus Asconius Pedianus, Commentarius in Oratio Ciceronis In Toga Candida (Commentary on Cicero's Oration In Toga Candida).
• Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.
• Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War).
• Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History.
• Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, Chronica.
• Joannes Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum (Epitome of History).
• Barthold Georg Niebuhr, The History of Rome, Julius Charles Hare and Connop Thirlwall, trans., John Smith, Cambridge (1828); Lectures on the History of Rome, (ed. L. Schmitz), Taylor, Walton, and Maberly, London (1849).
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849).
• Wilhelm Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (Collection of Greek Inscriptions, abbreviated SIG), Leipzig (1883).
• T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986).
• A. H. M. Jones & J. R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (abbreviated PLRE), Cambridge University Press (1971–1992).
• Graham Vincent Sumner, The Orators in Cicero's Brutus: Prosopography and Chronology, (Phoenix Supplementary Volume XI.), Toronto and Buffalo, University of Toronto Press (1973).
• Michael Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge University Press (1974, 2001).
• Timothy J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC), Routledge, London (1995).
• Tim Cornell (editor), The Fragments of the Roman Historians, Oxford University Press (2013).