Lucius Cassius Longinus (proconsul 48 BC)

{{short description|Roman general and politician}}

{{Other people||Lucius Cassius Longinus (disambiguation){{!}}Lucius Cassius Longinus}}

Lucius Cassius Longinus was the brother of the Gaius Cassius Longinus, a leading instigator in the assassination of Julius Caesar.

File:L. Cassius Longinus, denarius, 63 BC, RRC 413-1.jpg minted by Lucius Longinus in 63 BC, depicting Vesta on the obverse and a Roman citizen voting on the reverse. Both faces allude to the trial of the vestal virgins of 114–113 BC.Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, p. 440.]]

Around 52 BC, Lucius Longinus was triumvir monetalis in 63 BC. He minted denarii referring to the famous trial of the vestal virgins of 114–113 BC, which was prosecuted by his ancestor Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla. In 54 BC, he was the junior co-prosecutor ({{Lang|la|subscriptor}}) to {{Ill|Marcus Iuventius Laterensis|la}} in the trial of {{Ill|Gnaeus Plancius|la}} for electoral malpractice ({{Lang|la|ambitus}}).{{cite journal|last=Taylor |first=Lily Ross |author-link=Lily Ross Taylor |date=1968 |orig-date=1964 |title=Magistrates of 55 BC in Cicero's Pro Plancio and Catullus 52 |journal=Athenaeum |volume=42 |page=26 |issn=0004-6574}} Plancius was defenced by Cicero, who accused Longinus of incompetence, immorality and inexperience in his defence speech, the {{lang|la|Pro Plancio}}.{{cite book| last=May| first=James M.| year=1988| title=Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos| place=Chapel Hill| publisher=University of North Carolina Press| isbn=0807817597|pages=121–122}}

Longinus was made a proconsulCIL 1².2.774—ILS 39. by Caesar's appointment in 48 BC, during the civil war. He occupied Thessaly, but was forced by Metellus Scipio to retreat, after which he joined Calvisius Sabinus in Aetolia.Julius Caesar, Bellum Civile 3.5.4, 7, 8, 15; Cassius Dio 41.44, 46, 48; Orosius 6.15.10. He was a tribune of the plebs in 44 BC, a year in which the people's tribunes were exceptionally numerous and his brother held the praetorship. Along with his fellow tribunes Tiberius Canutius and Decimus Carfulenus, L. Cassius was excluded from the important meeting of the Roman senate held November 28 to reassign several provinces for the following year.Cicero, Philippics 3.23. For more on these provincial assignments, see G. Calvisius Sabinus: Praetor and governor. A bill enabling Caesar to add new families to the patriciateSuetonius, Divus Iulius 41.1; Tacitus, Annales 11.25; Cassius Dio 43.47.3. was probably sponsored by him rather than his brother as praetor.Giovanni Niccolini, I fasti dei tribuni della plebe (Milan 1934), p. 347, on the question of which brother was responsible for the legislation. Offices, dates, and citations of ancient sources from T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (American Philological Association, 1953), vol. 2, pp. 275, 323–324, 435, 544; vol. 3 (1986), pp. 51–52 (on monetalis date).