Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla was a Roman politician. He served as consul in 127 BC and censor at the following lustrum in 125 BC.[1]

His first recorded office was that of tribune of the plebs in 137 BC.[1] As a tribune of the plebs, he successfully proposed in the concilium plebis a law to introduce secret ballot for all trials before the Assemblies except those related to perduellio (treason); the bill was supported by Scipio Aemilianus but opposed by the then-consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Porcina and his tribunician colleague Marcus Antius Briso.[2][3][4]

He served in the praetorship some time before 130 BC,[1] and was elected to the consulship for 127 BC with Lucius Cornelius Cinna.[5] After his consulship, he was elected as censor for 125 BC with Gnaeus Servilius Caepio; during their censorship, they constructed the Aqua Tepula and named Publius Cornelius Lentulus as princeps senatus.[6]

He was renowned for severity as a iudex and gained fame for formulating the question "Cui bono?" ("Who benefits?") as a principle of criminal investigation.[4] In 113 BC, he was appointed special prosecutor in the case of three Vestal Virgins accused of unchastity under a law passed by one of the tribunes that year.[7] He condemned and put to death two of them – who had been acquitted by the pontifex maximus, Lucius Caecilius Metellus Delmaticus – as well as the men involved; doing so, however, incurred for him some suspicion of political bias.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Broughton 1952, p. 544.
  2. ↑ Broughton 1951, p. 484–85.
  3. ↑ Yakobson 2010, p. 290.
  4. 1 2 Badian 2012.
  5. ↑ Broughton 1951, p. 507.
  6. ↑ Broughton 1951, p. 510.
  7. 1 2 Broughton 1951, p. 537.

Sources

  • Badian, Ernst (2012). "Cassius Longinus Ravilla, Lucius". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (eds.). The Oxford classical dictionary (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 289. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8. OCLC 959667246.
  • Broughton, Thomas Robert Shannon (1951). The magistrates of the Roman republic. Vol. 1. New York: American Philological Association.
  • Broughton, Thomas Robert Shannon (1952). The magistrates of the Roman republic. Vol. 2. New York: American Philological Association.
  • Yakobson, Alexander (2010). "Traditional political culture and the people's role in the Roman republic". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. 59 (3): 282–302. doi:10.25162/historia-2010-0017. ISSN 0018-2311. JSTOR 25758311. S2CID 160215553.
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