Avidius Cassius - Early Career

Early Career

It is assumed that Cassius began his career during the reign of Antonius Pius. Possibly adlected as a quaestor in 154 AD, it is assumed that the young vir militaris was stationed in the final years of Pius’s reign as a legatus in one of the legions stationed along the Danube in Moesia Inferior, watching over the Sarmatians. Certainly by 161 AD, he is noted as a legatus in the legions.

He quickly came to prominence around 164 AD under the emperor Marcus Aurelius during the Parthian War, as the legatus of Legio III Gallica. A strict disciplinarian, in 165 he marched down the Euphrates and defeated the Parthians at Dura-Europus. By year’s end, Cassius had travelled to the south and crossed Mesopotamia at its narrowest point and proceeded to attack the twin Parthian cities on the Tigris river, Seleucia on the right bank, and Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital, on the left. He captured Ctesiphon and burnt the palace of Vologases, and although Seleucia had opened its gates to the Romans, he destroyed it as well, claiming that the local population had broken their agreement.

In dire need of supplies, and with his soldiers showing the first signs of having contracted the plague at Seleucia, he marched back to Syria with the spoils of the campaign. Sending details of his achievements to Rome, he was rewarded with elevation to the Senate, although officially the campaign was credited to his commander-in-chief, Lucius Verus. Verus even ordered Cassius to write up the events of the campaign so that Verus could write himself into the official history of the campaign.

In May of 166 AD, he was made suffect consul, a position he held outside of Rome. During that year, he and Verus launched a new campaign against the Parthians, this time across the northern Tigris river, and into Media. There, rumours (ultimately false) reached Rome that Cassius had crossed the Indus River along with the Third Syrian legion. By the end of 166, Cassius had been made imperial legate of the Roman province of Syria.

In 172, Cassius suppressed a revolt of the Bucoli (or herdsmen) in Egypt that had broken out and was centered in the area of the Pentapolis of Middle Egypt due to an explosion in grain prices at the time. His strategy was to divide the various tribespeople, but before he could enter Egypt, he had to be given special powers which gave him imperium over all the provinces of the east.