Spurius Cassius Vecellinus
Spurius Cassius Vecellinus was an early
consul of the
Roman Republic. Recorded in the
fasti as consul in
502,
493, and
486 BC, his last consulship, with Proculus Verginius Tricostus Rutilus, is believed to have actually occurred in
480 BC, the year in which the
Battle of Salamis took place in
Ancient Greece, and thus provides a chronological reference for early Roman history.
Livy (2.17) mentions Cassius participating in a siege of Pometia during his first consulship. In 493 Cassius negotiated the treaty (
foedus) of the Romans and Latins, which established both peaceful relations and a military alliance.
Cicero mentions that a copy of this treaty still existed in his own time (
Balb. 53), and
Dionysius of Halicarnassus summarized its terms (6.95).
In 486, a treaty with the
Hernici resulted in the surrender of two-thirds of their territory, which Cassius proposed to distribute to the
plebs, along with private land which he declared was illegally held. His co-consul Verginius opposed this, and suggested that Cassius aimed at kingship; after his term of office was up, Cassius was tried and executed. (
Livy 2.41). The story has anachronisms and similarities to the story of the
Gracchi, so it may be at least partly invented.
Diodorus Siculus (11.1.2) stated that their praetorship coincided with the archonship of Calliades in
Athens. Calliades was
archon there in 480 BC, according to modern historians (Bickerman, 1980: 138).
Herodotus (7.37, 166; 206; 8.51) confirms the possibility that the battles of
Thermopylae and
Salamis were fought shortly after the
Olympic Games of that year, and only a few months after these events: "On approach of spring, the sun suddenly quitted his seat in the heavens, and disappeared" when
Xerxes I left
Sardis in Lydia, a few weeks or months before his crossing over to Greece. This total
solar eclipse occurred on
February 17,
478 BC, providing a valuable chronological reference.
* Bickerman, E. J. (1980).
Chronology of the ancient world. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
