Vinnius Valens, Son of Vinnius Asina?

Abstract

MR. R. G. M. Nisbet has made the attractive suggestion that the Vinnius to whom Horace addressed his thirteenth epistle was the Vinnius Valens mentioned by the elder Pliny as a centurion of immense strength who had served in the praetorian guard of Augustus (N.H. 7. 82). To the points which he has made in support of this identification may be added the appropriateness, if Horace's Vinnius was a soldier, of the words victor propositi (II) and the fact that Horace's comparison between Vinnius and a pack-animal gains in point if Vinnius was famous for feats of strength involving wagons and beasts of burden.