Lucius Vipstanus Messalla (orator)
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Lucius Vipstanus Messalla (c. 45 – c. 80) was a Roman military officer,
senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...
, and a noted
orator An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled. Etymology Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14 ...
. He appears as a character in Tacitus' '' Dialogus de oratoribus''.


Biography

Vipstanus Messalla is presumed to be the son of Gaius Vipstanus Messalla Gallus, suffect consul in 48. The younger Messalla was a '' tribunus militum'' in 69, stationed with the legion VII Claudia in Moesia which entered the
civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
against the
emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...
Vitellius. He was temporarily in command of the legion in September and October 69, after the legion's legate was forced to flee for his life; later, Messalla wrote an account of the campaign. Messalla was a friend of the historian Tacitus, who used Messalla's account of the campaign in his own work '' Histories''. Tacitus described Messalla as an outstanding orator; in AD 70, Vipstanus Messalla, who was not yet of senatorial age, defended his older half-brother, the notorious informer Marcus Aquilius Regulus in the Curia Julia. Massalla's family's prestige was sufficient to sway enough of the Senate to reject the charges laid against Regulus.Rudich, Vasily, ''Political Dissidence Under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation'' (1993), p. 193 Messalla likely died during the reign of Titus, possibly during the epidemic that swept through the city in 80. He had at least one son, also named Lucius Vipstanus Messalla.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Messalla, Lucius Vipstanus 40s births 80s deaths Messalla 1st-century Romans