Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, was passionately loved by Apollo, who promised to grant her whatever she might require, if she would gratify his passion. She asked the power of knowing futurity; and as soon as she had received it, she refused to perform her promise, and slighted Apollo. The god, in his disappointment, wetted her lips with his tongue, and by this action effected that no credit or reliance should ever be put upon her predictions, however true or faithful they might be. Some maintain that she received the gift of prophecy with her brother Helenus, by being placed when young one night in the temple of Apollo, where serpents were found wreathed round their bodies and licking their ears, which circumstance gave them the knowledge of futurity. She was looked upon by the Trojans as insane, and she was even confined, and her predictions were disregarded. She was courted by many princes during the Trojan war. When Troy was taken, she fled for shelter to the temple of Minerva, where Ajax found her, and offered her violence, with the greatest cruelty, at the foot of Minerva’s statue. In the division of the spoils of Troy, Agamemnon, who was enamoured of her, took her as his wife, and returned with her to Greece. She repeatedly foretold to him the sudden calamities that awaited his return; but he gave no credit to her, and was assassinated by his wife Clytemnestra. Cassandra shared his fate, and saw all her prophecies but too truly fulfilled. See: [Agamemnon]. Aeschylus, Agamemnon.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 13, li. 363; Odyssey, bk. 4.—Hyginus, fable 117.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 2, li. 246, &c.—Quintus Calaber [Smyrnæus], bk. 13, li. 421.—Euripides, Trojan Women.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 16; bk. 3, ch. 19.
Cassandria, a town of the peninsula of Pallene in Macedonia, called also Potidæa. Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 23.
Cassia lex, was enacted by Cassius Longinus, A.U.C. 649. By it no man condemned or deprived of military power was permitted to enter the senate house.——Another, enacted by Caius Cassius the pretor, to choose some of the plebeians to be admitted among the patricians.——Another. A.U.C. 616, to make the suffrages of the Roman people free and independent. It ordained that they should be received upon tablets. Cicero, de Amicitia.——Another, A.U.C. 267, to make a division of the territories taken from the Hernici, half to the Roman people and half to the Latins.——Another, enacted A.U.C. 596, to grant a consular power to Publius Anicius and Octavius on the day they triumphed over Macedonia. Livy.
Cassiodōrus, a great statesman and writer in the sixth century. He died A.D. 562, at the age of 100.—His works were edited by Chandler, 8vo, London, 1722.
Cassiŏpe and Cassiŏpea, married Cepheus king of Æthiopia, by whom she had Andromeda. She boasted herself to be fairer than the Nereides; upon which Neptune, at the request of these despised nymphs, punished the insolence of Cassiope, and sent a huge sea monster to ravage Æthiopia. The wrath of Neptune could be appeased only by exposing Andromeda, whom Cassiope tenderly loved, to the fury of this sea monster; and just as she was going to be devoured, Perseus delivered her. See: [Andromeda]. Cassiope was made a southern constellation, consisting of 13 stars called Cassiope. Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 2, ch. 43.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, li. 738.—Hyginus, fable 64.—Propertius, bk. 1, poem 17, li. 3.—Marcus Manilius, bk. 1.——A city of Epirus near Thesprotia. Another in the island of Corcyra. Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 12.——The wife of Epaphus. Statius, Sylvæ.
Cassitĕrĭdes, islands in the western ocean, where tin was found, supposed to be the Scilly islands, the Land’s End, and Lizard Point, of the moderns. Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 22.
Cassivelaunus, a Briton invested with sovereign authority when Julius Cæsar made a descent upon Britain. Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 5, ch. 19, &c.
Caius Cassius, a celebrated Roman, who made himself known by being first questor to Crassus in his expedition against Parthia, from which he extricated himself with uncommon address. He followed the interest of Pompey; and when Cæsar had obtained the victory in the plains of Pharsalia, Cassius was one of those who owed their life to the mercy of the conqueror. He married Junia the sister of Brutus, and with him he resolved to murder the man to whom he was indebted for his life, on account of his oppressive ambition; and before he stabbed Cæsar, he addressed himself to the statue of Pompey, who had fallen by the avarice of him whom he was going to assassinate. When the provinces were divided among Cæsar’s murderers, Cassius received Africa; and when his party had lost ground at Rome, by the superior influence of Augustus and Marcus Antony, he retired to Philippi, with his friend Brutus and their adherents. In the battle that was fought there, the wing which Cassius commanded was defeated, and his camp was plundered. In this unsuccessful moment he suddenly gave up all hopes of recovering his losses, and concluded that Brutus was conquered and ruined as well as himself. Fearful to fall into the enemy’s hands, he ordered one of his freedmen to run him through, and he perished by that very sword which had given wounds to Cæsar. His body was honoured with a magnificent funeral by his friend Brutus, who declared over him that he deserved to be called the last of the Romans. If he were brave, he was equally learned. Some of his letters are still extant among Cicero’s epistles. He was a strict follower of the doctrines of Epicurus. He was often too rash and too violent, and many of the wrong steps which Brutus took are to be ascribed to the prevailing advice of Cassius. He is allowed by Paterculus to have been a better commander than Brutus, though a less sincere friend. The day after Cæsar’s murder he dined at the house of Antony, who asked him whether he had then a dagger concealed in his bosom. “Yes,” replied he, “if you aspire to tyranny.” Seutonius, Cæsar & Augustus.—Plutarch, Brutus & Cæsar.—Paterculus, bk. 2, ch. 46.—Dio Cassius, bk. 40.——A Roman citizen who condemned his son to death, on pretence of his raising commotions in the state. Valerius Maximus, bk. 5, ch. 8.——A tribune of the people, who made many laws tending to diminish the influence of the Roman nobility. He was competitor with Cicero for the consulship.——One of Pompey’s officers, who, during the civil wars, revolted to Cæsar with 10 ships.——A poet of Parma, of great genius. He was killed by Varus, by order of Augustus, whom he had offended by his satirical writings. His fragments of Orpheus were found and edited some time after by the poet Statius. Horace, bk. 1, satire 10, li. 62.——Spurius, a Roman, put to death on suspicion of his aspiring to tyranny, after he had been three times consul, B.C. 485. Diodorus, bk. 11.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 6, ch. 3.——Brutus, a Roman who betrayed his country to the Latins, and fled to the temple of Pallas, where his father confined him, and he was starved to death.——Longinus, an officer of Cæsar in Spain, much disliked. Cæsar, Alexandrine War, ch. 48.——A consul, to whom Tiberius married Drusilla daughter of Germanicus. Seutonius, Galba, ch. 57.——A lawyer whom Nero put to death, because he bore the name of Julius Cæsar’s murderer. Suetonius, Nero, ch. 37.——Lucius Hemina, the most ancient writer of annals at Rome. He lived A.U.C. 608.——Lucius, a Roman lawyer, whose severity in the execution of the law has rendered the words Cassiani judices applicable to rigid judges. Cicero, For Sextus Roscius of Ameria, ch. 30.——Longinus, a critic. See: [Longinus].——Lucius, a consul with Caius Marius, slain with his army by the Gauls Senones. Appian, Gallic History.——Marcus Scæva, a soldier of uncommon valour in Cæsar’s army. Valerius Maximus, bk. 3, ch. 2.——An officer under Aurelius, made emperor by his soldiers, and murdered three months after.——Felix, a physician in the age of Tiberius, who wrote on animals.——Severus, an orator who wrote a severe treatise on illustrious men and women. He died in exile, in his 25th year. See: [Severus]. The family of Cassii branched into the surname of Longinus, Viscellinus, Brutus, &c.
Cassōtis, a nymph and fountain of Phocis. Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 24.
Castabala, a city of Cilicia, whose inhabitants made war with their dogs. Pliny, bk. 8, ch. 40.