Gaius Cassius Longinus was a Roman consul

Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

 in the year 171 BCE, together with Publius Licinius Crassus

Publius Licinius Crassus (consul 171 BC)

Publius Licinius Crassus was Roman consul for year 171 BC, together with Gaius Cassius Longinus.He was the son of Gaius Licinius Varus, possibly related to the Gaius Licinius Varus who was consul in 236 BC and who was still alive in 219 BC...

.

Cassius Longinus was not given a command position as he had hoped during the Third Macedonian War

Third Macedonian War

The Third Macedonian War was a war fought between Rome and King Perseus of Macedon. In 179 BC King Philip V of Macedon died and his talented and ambitious son, Perseus, took his throne. Perseus married Laodike, daughter of King Seleucus IV Keraunos of Asia, and increased the size of his army...

, and instead was sent to the northern border of Italy in the province of Illyria

Illyria

In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....

 to man a defense against attacks from Macedon

Macedon

Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

. Ignoring his orders, he decided to gather his army at Aquileia

Aquileia

Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in what is now Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 10 km from the sea, on the river Natiso , the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times...

 with thirty days worth of supplies and moved south into Macedonia. The Roman senate

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

 learned of his actions and recalled him back to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. While Cassius Longinus was on his way back to Rome, he drove his army over the Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

, mercilessly pillaging Scordisci

Scordisci

The Scordisci were an Iron Age tribe centered in the territory of present-day Serbia, at the confluence of the Savus , Dravus and Danube rivers. They were historically notable from the beginning of the third century BC until the turn of the common era...

 and other Celtic villages, carrying off thousands of people to be used as slaves. The people were so outraged that they took their case directly to the senate. The senate found that their evidence was indeed valid, and delivered to them various gifts as reparations.

After Cassius Longinus's return to Rome, he became a censor in 154 BCE. A stone theater, the first of its kind in Rome that he had constructed, was declared to be a violation of pudicitia

Pudicitia

Pudicitia was a central concept in ancient Roman sexual ethics. The word is derived from the more general pudor, the sense of shame that regulated an individual's behavior as socially acceptable...

by Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica

Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica

Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica was a consul of ancient Rome in 191 BC. He was a son of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus...

, and was destroyed upon orders from the senate.