Cassius Longinus (philosopher)

Cassius Longinus (/ˈkæʃəs lɒnˈdʒaɪnəs/; Greek: Κάσσιος Λογγῖνος; c. 213 – 273 AD) was a Hellenistic rhetorician and philosophical critic. He was perhaps a native of Emesa in Syria. He studied at Alexandria under Ammonius Saccas and Origen the Pagan, and taught for thirty years in Athens, one of his pupils being Porphyry. Longinus did not embrace the Neoplatonism then being developed by Plotinus, but continued as a Platonist of the old type and his reputation as a literary critic was immense. During a visit to the east, he became a teacher, and subsequently chief counsellor to Zenobia, queen of Palmyra. It was by his advice that she endeavoured to regain her independence from Rome. Emperor Aurelian, however, crushed the revolt, and Longinus was executed.

The origin of his gentile name Cassius is unknown; it can only be conjectured that he was the client to some Cassius Longinus, or that his ancestors had received the Roman franchise through the influence of some . He was born about 213, and was killed in 273, at the age of sixty. The suggestion that his original name was Dionysius arose only because the 1st century rhetorical treatise On the Sublime was ascribed to a "Dionysius or Longinus" in the medieval period.

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