Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/814

Rh soo LONGINUS. soldiers, that they offered him in Carrhae the supreme command of the army ; but this he de- clined, although Crassus, in his despondency, was quite willing to resign it. In the retreat from Carrhae, which they were soon afterwards obliged to make, Crassus was misled by the guides, and killed [Crassus, p. 878] ; but Cassius, suspect- ing treachery, returned to Carrhae, and thence made his escape to Sj^ria with 500 horsemen by another way. After crossing the Euphrates, he collected the remains of the Roman army, and made preparations to defend the province against the Partliians. The enemy did not cross the river till the following year, B. c. 52, and then only with a small force, which was easily driven back by Cassius, upon whom the government of the pro- vince had devolved as proquaestor, as no successor to Crassus had yet been appointed. Next year, B. c. 51, the Parthians again crossed the river, with a much larger army, under the command of Osaces and Pacorus, the son of Orodes, the Parthian king. As M. Bibulus, who had been appointed proconsul of Syria, had not yet arrived, the conduct of the war again devolved upon Cassius. He thought it more prudent to retire at first before the Parthians, and threw himself into the strongl}-^ fortified city of Antioch ; and when the barbarians withdrew finding it impossible to take the place, he followed them, and gained, in September, a brilliant victory over them. Osaces died a few days after of the wounds which he had received in the battle, and the remains of the army fled in confusion across the Euphrates. Cicero, who commanded in the neighbouring province of Cilicia, was now delivered from the great fear he had entertained of being obliged to meet the Parthians himself, and accord- ingly wrote to Cassius to congratulate him on his success {ad Fam. xv. 1 4. § 3), but notwithstand- ing this attempted, in every possible way, to rob him of the honour of the victory. {Ad Fam. iii. 8, viii. 10, ad Att. v. 21.) On the arrival of Bibulus, Cassius returned to Italy. He expected to be ac- cused of extortion ; and he was generally sup- posed, and apparently with justice, to have fleeced the provincials unmercifully. But the breaking out of the civil war, almost immediately after- wards, saved him from the accusation which he dreaded. In B. c. 49 Cassius was tribune of the plebs. He was a supporter of the aristocratical party, and, with the rest of the leaders of that party, left Rome in the month of January. He crossed over to Greece with Pompey in the month of March, and subsequently received the command of the Syrian, Phoenician, and Cilician ships. With these he went to Sicily in the following year, b. c. 48, where he burnt off Messana thirty-five ships, commanded by the Caesarian, M. Pomponius, and subsequently five ships belonging to the squadron of Sulpicius and Libo. After that he made many descents upon the coasts of Sicily and Italy, till the news of the battle of Pharsalia obliged him to put a stop to his devastations. Cassius sailed to the Hellespont, with the hope of inducing Pharnaces to join him against Caesar ; but in that sea he accidentally fell in with Caesar, and although he had a much larger force, he was so much astonished and alarmed at meeting with the conqueror, that he did not attempt to make any re- sistance, but surrendered himself unconditionally into his power. Caesar not only forgave him, but LONGINUS. made him soon afterwards one of his legates. Whether Cassius took part in the Alexandrian war, is unknown ; but he appears to have been engaged in that against Pharnaces. In B. c. 46 he re- mained in Rome, as he did not wish to accompany Caesar to Africa in order to fight against his former friends, and he was busily engaged during this tmie in studying along with Cicero. In the following year, b. c. 45, he retired from Rome to Brundisium, waiting to hear the result of the struggle in Spain, and intending to return to Rome on the first news of the victory of the dictator. During this time he and Cicero kept up a diligent correspondence with one another. (Cic. ad Fam. 17 — 19 ; comp. ad Alt. xiii. 22.) In B. c. 44 Cassius was praetor peregrinus, and was to receive the province of Syria next year. But although his life had been spared, and he was thus raised to honours by Caesar, yet he was the author of the conspiracy against the dictator's life. He was said to have been deeply aggrieved, because M. Brutus, although his junior, had been appointed by Caesar as city praetor, in preference to himself ; but this slight only exasperated the feelings he had previously entertained. He had never ceased lo be Caesar's enem}^ and Caesar seems to have looked upon him with more mistrust than upon most of his former foes (comp. Plut. Caes. 62 ; Veil. Pat. ii. 56). One thing, however, is clear, that it was mere personal hatred and ambition which urged on Cassius to take away the dictator's life ; and that a love of country and of liberty was a sheer pretext. His gre«at object was to gain over M. Brutus, the dictator's favourite, and when this was done, every- thing else was easily arranged. In the bloody tragedy of the 15th of March, Cassius took a dis- tinguished part. When the conspirators pressed round Caesar, and one of them hesitated to strike, Cassius called out " Strike, though it be through me," and he himself is said to have wounded Caesar in the face. After the murder the conspirators fled to the Capitol ; but they were bitterly disappointed in finding that the supreme power fell into the hands of Antony, who was supported by the army of Lepidus, which was in the neighbourhood of the city. [Lepidus, p. 767.] A hollow agreement was patched up between Antony and the conspi- rators, in consequence of which the latter left the Capitol ; but the riots which broke out at Caesar's funeral showed the conspirators that even their lives were not safe in Rome. Many of them im- mediately quitted the city, but Cassius and Brutus remained behind, till the attempts of the Pseudo- Marius, who was executed by Marius, hastened their departure in the middle of April. They did not, however, go far, but flattering themselves with the hope that there might be some change in their favour, they remained for the next four months in Latium and Campania. As praetors, they ought of course to have continued in Rome ; and the senate, anxious to make it appear that they had not fled from the city, passed a decree on the 5th of June, by which they were commissioned to purchase corn in Sicily and Asia. But Cassius looked upon this as an insult in the guise of a favour. About the same time he and Brutus received Cyrene and Crete as praetorian provinces, but this was a poor compensation for the provinces of Syria and Mace- donia, the former of which Caesar had promised to Cassius and the latter to Brutus, but which had