Background
Gaius Cassius was called Parmensisfrom his birthplace Parma. He was born on October 3, 85 BC.
Gaius Cassius was called Parmensisfrom his birthplace Parma. He was born on October 3, 85 BC.
Gaius Cassius studied philosophy at Rhodes under Archelaus and became fluent in Greek.
In 43 B. C. Gaius Cassius was in command of the fleet on the coast of Asia, but after the battle of Philippi joined Sextus Pompeius in Sicily.
When Pompeius, having been defeated in a naval engagement at Naulochus by the fleet of Octavian under Agrippa, fled to Asia, Cassius went over to Antony, and took part in the battle of Actium.
He afterwards fled to Athens, where he was soon put to death by Octavian, whom he had offended by writing an abusive letter (Suetonius, Augustus, 4).
Cassius is credited with satires, elegies, epigrams and tragedies.
Some hexameters with the title CassiiOrpheus are by Antonius Thylesius, an Italian of the 17 th century.
Horace appears to have thought well of Cassius as a poet, for he asks Tibullus whether he intends to compete with the opuscula (probably the elegies) of Cassius. The story in the Horace scholia, that L. Varius Rufus published his famous tragedy Thyestes from an MS. which he found amongst the papers of Cassius after his death, is due to a confusion of Cassius's murderer
He was married to Junia Tertia (Tertulla), who was the daughter of Servilia and thus a half-sister of his co-conspirator Brutus. They had one son, who was born in about 60 BC
