Quintus Cassius Longinus, the brother or cousin of Cassius the murderer of Julius Caesar, was a governor in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal) for Caesar. Cassius was one of the tresviri monetales of the Roman mint in 55 bc. He served as a quaestor of Pompey in Hispania Ulterior in 54 BC. In 49, as tribune of the people, he strongly supported the cause of Caesar, by whom he was made governor of Hispania Ulterior. He treated the provincials with great cruelty, and his appointment (48) to take the field against Juba I of Numidia gave him an excuse for fresh oppression. The result was 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 under the quaestor Marcellus, who was proclaimed governor of the province. Cassius was surrounded by Marcellus in Ulia. Bogud, king of Mauretania, and Marcellus Lepidus, proconsul of Hispania Citerior, to whom Cassius had applied for assistance, negotiated an arrangement with Marcellus whereby Cassius was to be allowed to go free with the legions that remained loyal to him. Cassius sent his troops into winter quarters, hastened on board ship at Malaca with his ill-gotten gains, but was wrecked in a storm at the mouth of the Iberus (Ebro). His tyrannical government of Hispania greatly injured the cause of Caesar.
References
- Crawford, Michael. Roman Republican Coinage. Cambridge, 1924.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
