Messalla
14. L. Vipstanus Messalla, was legionary tribune in Vespasian's army, A. D. 70. He rescued the legatus Aponius Saturninus from the fury of the soldiers who suspected him of corresponding with the Vitellian party. Messalla was brother of Aquilius Regulus, the notorious delator in Domitian's reign (Plin. Ep. 1.5). He is one of Tacitus' authorities for the history of the civil wars after Galba's death, and a principal interlocutor in the dialogue De Oratoribus, ascribed to Tacitus. (Tac. Hist. 3.9, 11, 18, 25, 28, 4.42, Dialog. de Orat. 15-25.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.