Gaius Cassius Longinus was a Roman consul in the year 171 BCE, together with Publius Licinius Crassus.
[1] Cassius Longinus was not given a command position as he had hoped during the Third Macedonian War, and instead was sent to the northern border of Italy in the province of Illyria to man a defense against attacks from Macedon.
Ignoring his orders, he decided to gather his army at Aquileia with thirty days worth of supplies and moved south into Macedonia.
[2] While Cassius Longinus was on his way back to Rome, he drove his army over the Alps, mercilessly pillaging Scordisci and other Celtic villages, carrying off thousands of people to be used as slaves.
A stone theater, the first of its kind in Rome that he had constructed, was declared to be a violation of pudicitia by Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum, and was destroyed upon orders from the senate.