Lucius Cassius Longinus was the first husband of the Emperor

Roman Emperor

The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...

 Caligula

Caligula

Caligula , also known as Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 AD to 41 AD. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most...

's sister Julia Drusilla in 33

33

Year 33 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Ocella and Sulla...

 AD. Cassius came from an ancient and noble

Nobiles

During the Roman Republic, nobilis was a descriptive term of social rank, usually indicating that a member of the family had achieved the consulship. Those who belonged to the hereditary patrician families were noble, but plebeians whose ancestors were consuls were also considered nobiles...

 gens

Gens

In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...

, the Cassii

Cassius (gens)

The gens Cassia was a Roman family of great antiquity. The gens was originally patrician, but all of the members who appear in later times were plebeians. The first of the Cassii to obtain the consulship was Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, in 502 BC. He was the proposer of the first agrarian law,...

. In early 37

37

Year 37 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Proculus and Pontius...

, he was appointed by Tiberius

Tiberius

Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...

 as a commissioner. When Tiberius died later that year, Caligula became Caesar

Caesar (title)

Caesar is a title of imperial character. It derives from the cognomen of Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator...

. Caligula ordered Cassius to divorce Drusilla, so she could live incestuously in Rome with her brother. Caligula subsequently murdered Cassius, before his own assassination

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 in 41, based on an oracle

Oracle

In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....

 which Caligula interpreted as indicating that Cassius would assassinate him. By a strange coincidence, Caligula was assassinated by a Cassius, the tribune

Tribune

Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...

 Cassius Chaerea

Cassius Chaerea

Cassius Chaerea was a centurion in the army of Germanicus and served in the Praetorian Guard under the emperor Caligula, whom he eventually assassinated....

.