Roman Republic Lucius Cassius Longinus

The moneyer's grandfather, Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla, was a respected judge who presided over the re-trial of three Vestal Virgins who, in 113 BC, were accused of being unchaste. Having first been acquitted by the pontifices, Ravilla found them guilty, and condemned and put to death two of them. This obverse type marks 50 years since those events had unfolded, while the reverse type notes how, as a tribune of the plebs in 137 BC, Ravilla had successfully proposed in the Concilium Plebis the lex Cassia tabellaria, which as a measure to change the voting system to one of secret ballot.