Rhodes, having signed a treaty with Rome in 164 BCE, has become a major schooling center for Roman noble families, and is especially noted for its teachers of rhetoric, such as Hermagoras of Temnos and the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium.

At first the state had been an important ally of Rome and enjoyed numerous privileges, but these have gradually been lost in various machinations of Roman politics.

After Caesar's murder, Gaius Cassius, one of the assassins, had joined the party of Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus (the more famous Cassius and prime mover of the assassination).

Commanding the fleet that engaged Dolabella off the coast of Asia, Cassius plunders Rhodes for refusal to support him. (Rhodes will continue for another century as a free city, but it will never recover its former prosperity.)