The gens Cassia was a Roman family of great antiquity. The earliest members of this gens appearing in history may have been patrician, but all those appearing in later times were plebeians. The first of the Cassii to obtain the consulship was Spurius Cassius Vecellinus, in 502 BC. He proposed the first agrarian law, for which he was charged with aspiring to make himself king, and put to death by the patrician nobility. The Cassii were amongst the most prominent families of the later Republic, and they frequently held high office, lasting well into imperial times. Among their namesakes are the Via Cassia, the road to Arretium, and the village of Cassianum Hirpinum, originally an estate belonging to one of this family in the country of the Hirpini.[1]
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 praetorMarcus 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 Vecellinus, 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]
The principal names of the Cassii during the Republic were Lucius, Gaius, and Quintus. The praenomenSpurius is known only from Spurius Cassius Vecellinus, 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 agnomenRavilla. 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.
Cassii Viscellini, three sons of the consul Viscellinus, whose praenomina are unknown, were spared by the senate after the murder of their father. They or their descendants may have been expelled by the patricians from their order, or have voluntarily passed over to the plebeians.[6][7]
Quintus Cassius (Longinus?), military tribune in 252 BC, during the First Punic War. He was deprived of his command following a severe defeat, after engaging the enemy against the orders of the consul, Gaius Aurelius Cotta.[8][9]
Lucius Cassius Q. f. Longinus, father of Quintus, consul in 164 BC, and possibly son of Quintus, the military tribune.[9]
Gaius Cassius Longinus, grandfather of Gaius Cassius Longinus, the consul of 171 BC.[9]
Gaius Cassius C. f. Longinus, the father of Gaius Cassius Longinus.[9]
Lucius Cassius C. f. C. n. Longinus Ravilla, the elder son of the consul of 171, as tribune of the plebs in 137, he passed the third Lex Tabellaria. He was then consul in 127, and censor in 125 BC. In 113 he was elected special prosecutor to investigate an incest scandal among the Vestal Virgins; he sentenced to death two of them that had been acquitted the previous year.[12][9]
Gaius Cassius C. f. C. n. Longinus, consul in 124 BC; the younger son of the consul of 171.[13][14][9]
Lucius Cassius Q. f. L. n. Longinus, son of the consul of 164 BC.[9]
Gaius Cassius C. f. C. n. Longinus, son of the consul of 124 BC, triumvir monetalis in 126.[i][9][15]
Quintus Cassius L. f. L. n. Longinus, younger brother of the tribune of 104 BC.[9]
Lucius Cassius (L. f. L. n. Longinus), as tribune of the plebs in 89 BC, roused a mob of creditors to lynch the praetor Aulus Sempronius Asellio. Sumner makes him one of the Longini, and the first son of Lucius, the consul of 107.[17][9]
Cassius Clemens, brought to trial circa AD 195, for having espoused the side of Pescennius Niger, defended himself with such dignity that Septimius Severus granted him his life and allowed him to retain half his property.[47]
Lucius Cassius Dio, 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.[48][45]
Cassius Dio, consul in AD 291, perhaps the grandson of the historian.[45][49]
^Sumner thought that the moneyer was also the consul of 124 BC, but according to Crawford, he would have already been too old in 127.
^Sumner suggested that L. Cassius, military tribune in 69, was a son of Gaius, consul in 96,[19] but Broughton later identified him with L. Longinus, praetor in 66.[20] Broughton was also less certain than Crawford and Sumner that the praetor should be identified with L. Cassius Q. f., monetalis in 78.[21][22][19]
^It is unknown whether he was one of the Longini, neither Broughton nor Sumner gives his family connections with the other Cassii.
Sumner, Graham Vincent (1973). The Orators in Cicero's Brutus: Prosopography and Chronology. Phoenix Supplementary Volume XI. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press..
Crawford, Michael (2001) [1974]. Roman Republican Coinage. Cambridge University Press.
Cornell, Timothy J. (1995). The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC). London: Routledge.
Cornell, Tim, ed. (2013). The Fragments of the Roman Historians. Oxford University Press.