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Equestrian (Roman)
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The Roman equestrian order (ordo equester) constituted the lower of the two aristocratic classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the Senatorial Order (ordo senatorius). A member of the order was known as an eques (plural: equites), which in Latin has the general meaning of any person mounted on a horse (equus), but in this context carries the specific meaning of "knight".
During the Roman Republican era, the equites formed the top social class in Roman society, being those assessed with the highest property.
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The Roman equestrian order (ordo equester) constituted the lower of the two aristocratic classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the Senatorial Order (ordo senatorius). A member of the order was known as an eques (plural: equites), which in Latin has the general meaning of any person mounted on a horse (equus), but in this context carries the specific meaning of "knight".
During the Roman Republican era, the equites formed the top social class in Roman society, being those assessed with the highest property. They provided the senior officers and much of the cavalry of the manipular legions until 88 BC, when legionary cavalry was abolished. In the later Republican period, Roman Senators and their offspring became an unofficial elite within the equestrian order.
Under the founder of the Roman empire, Augustus (sole rule 30 BC - AD 14), the senatorial elite was constituted as a separate order with superior rank and privileges to the equites. The two aristocratic orders, consisting mainly of Italians, dominated the top administrative and military posts in the imperial government until the 3rd century. In that century, power shifted to a section of the equites consisting of career military officers from the provinces who displaced the Italian aristocrats.
Regal era (753 to 509 BC)
According to Roman legend, Rome was founded by its first king, Romulus, in 753 BC. However, archaeological evidence suggests that Rome did not acquire the character of a unified city-state (as opposed to a number of separate hilltop settlements) until ca. 625 BC. According to the Roman historian Livy, Romulus established a cavalry regiment of 300 men called the Celeres ("the Swift") to act as his personal escort, with each of the three original tribes of Rome (the Ramnes, Tities and Luceres) supplying a centuria (century; company of 100 men), as well as 1,000 infantry to the army. This cavalry regiment was supposedly doubled in size to 600 men by King Tarquinius Priscus (conventional dates 616-578 BC). P. Fraccaro's interpretation of the so-called Servian reforms to the army suggests that under king Servius Tullius (r. 578-535 BC), the hoplite (armoured) infantry was also doubled in size to a single legion of 6,000, which, together with 2,400 velites (unarmoured infantry) and 600 cavalry adds up to a total regal levy of 9,000 iuniores (men of military age: aged 16 to 45). Until recently, Fraccaro's thesis was not widely accepted because of the prevailing 1960s theory of A. Alfoldi that Rome was an insignificant settlement until ca. 500 BC and could not therefore have supported such a powerful army (or cavalry) in the regal era. But recent archaeology has established that Rome was one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean region in the period 625-500 BC. With an estimated 35,000 inhabitants, a military levy of 9,000 is plausible. According to Livy, Servius Tullius also established a further 12 centuriae of cavalry. But this is unlikely, as it would have increased the cavalry to 1,800 horse, implausibly large compared to 8,400 infantry (in peninsular Italy, cavalry typically constituted about 8% of a field army).. This is confirmed by the fact that in the early Republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong (2 legions with 300 horse each). Apparently, equites were originally provided with a sum of money by the state to purchase a horse for military service and for its fodder. This was known as an equus publicus.
An important question is whether the royal cavalry was drawn exclusively from the ranks of the Patricians (patricii), the aristocracy of early Rome, which was purely hereditary.This is certainly the mainstream view among historians, starting with Mommsen. Apart from the traditional association of the aristocracy with horsemanship, the evidence for this view is the fact that, during the Republic, 6 centuriae (voting constituencies) of equites in the comitia centuriata (electoral assembly) retained the names of the original 6 royal cavalry centuriae. These are very likely "the centuriae of patrician nobles" in the comitia mentioned by the lexicologist Festus. If this view is correct, it implies that the cavalry was exclusively patrician (and therefore hereditary) in the regal period.
Early Republic (509-338 BC)
It is widely accepted that the Roman monarchy was overthrown by a patrician coup, probably provoked by the Tarquin "dynasty"s populist policies in favour of the plebeian class. Indeed, Alfoldi suggests that the coup was carried out by the Celeres themselves. According to the Fraccaro interpretation, when the Roman monarchy was replaced by two annually elected praetores (later called consuls), the royal army was divided equally among them for campaigning purposes, which if true explains why a later Polybian legion's cavalry contingent was 300-strong.
At some point in the early Republic, an important constitutional reform was introduced called the "Servian" centuriate organisation. Although attributed by ancient writers to king Servius Tullius, it is generally accepted that it dated from much later. Cornell suggests that it was introduced in 406 BC, accompanying the introduction of pay for military service to compensate levies for time away from their fields. For the purposes of electoral activity and taxation, the male citizen body that was eligible for military service in the legions was divided into 5 classes based on property bands. The classes in turn were divided into centuriae (voting constituencies in this context, not military formations). The highest band was known as the First Class and rated at over 10,000 drachmae (the Greek denomination used by the Romans as their main silver coin until the introduction of their own denarius, of similar value, in 211 BC). It included 18 centuriae of equites and 80 of wealthy commoners. The 12 centuriae of equites additional to the original 6 of regal origin were probably formed at this time. It is widely agreed that they were open to non-patricians. Thus, from this date if not earlier, equites were no longer synonymous with patricians. The latter became an ever-diminishing minority group within the Roman nobilitas (aristocracy), but retained official precedence and enormous prestige and certain reserved posts, mostly of a religious nature.
In 403 BC, according to Livy, in a crisis during the siege of Veii, the army urgently needed to deploy more cavalry, and "those who possessed equestrian rating but had not been assigned public horses" volunteered to pay for their horses out of their own pocket. By way of compensation, pay was introduced for cavalry service, as it had already been for the infantry (in 406 BC). This incident seems to have been the genesis of the equites equo privato, which, ranking below the equo publico class, persisted throughout the Republic. Mommsen argues that members of the First Class who did not belong to the 18 centuriae of equites were first admitted to cavalry service at this time as an emergency measure but eventually were all required to serve as cavalrymen. However, they were never allowed to join the 18 centuriae of equites nor, presumably, to enjoy the full status and privileges of knights. In conclusion, after 403 BC, it seems that there were three classes of equites: patricians equo publico in the 6 original centuriae; plebeian equo publico in the additional 12 centuriae; and plebeian equo privato from the other 80 centuriae of the First Class. Although membership of the 18 centuriae of equo publico knights was hereditary (in the male line), new members could be added, and existing members expelled, by the Censors
According to the ancient Greek historian Polybius, whose Histories (written ca. 140s BC) are the earliest sizable extant account of the Republic, Roman cavalry was originally unarmoured, wearing only a tunic and armed with a light spear and ox-hide shield which were of low quality and quickly deteriorated in action. The cavalry in the field during the early Republic probably continued to number ca. 600, as normally just two legions were levied for each campaigning season.
Later Republic (338-30 BC)
Transformation of state and army (338-290)
The period following the end of the Latin War (340-338 BC) and of the Samnite Wars (343-290) saw the transformation of the Roman Republic from a powerful but beleaguered city-state into the hegemonic power of the Italian peninsula. This was accompanied by profound changes in its constitution and army. Internally, the critical development was the emergence of the Senate as the all-powerful organ of state. By 280 BC, the Senate had assumed total control of state taxation, expenditure, declarations of war, treaties, raising of legions, establishing colonies and religious affairs. In other words, of everything. From an ad hoc group of advisors appointed by the Consuls, the Senate had become a permanent body of ca. 300 life peers who, as mainly former executive officers, boasted enormous experience and influence. At the same time, the political unification of the Latin nation under Roman rule after 338 BC gave Rome a populous regional base from which to launch its wars of aggression against its neighbours.
The gruelling contest for Italian hegemony that Rome fought against the Samnite League led to the transformation of the Roman army from the Greek-style hoplite phalanx that it was in the early period to the Italian-style manipular army described by Polybius. It is believed that the Romans copied the manipular structure from their enemies the Samnites, learning through hard experience its greater flexibility and effectiveness in the mountain terrain of central Italy. It is also from this period that every Roman army which took the field was regularly accompanied by at least as many troops supplied by the socii (Rome's Italian military confederates, often referred to as "Latin allies"). Each legion would be matched by a confederate ala (literally: "wing"), a formation that contained roughly the same number of infantry as a legion, but three times the number of horse (900).
Legionary cavalry also probably underwent a transformation during this period, from the light, unarmoured horsemen of the early period to the Greek-style armoured cuirassiers described by Polybius. There is some support for this from the Lucanian tomb murals of Paestum (ca. 350-300 BC), one of which shows a Samnite horseman, wearing a variant of a Corinthian-style helmet and bronze strap-on breastplate. Since the Romans were at war with the Samnites, it is likely that the Romans would have wanted to keep abreast of them technologically, especially as, in the words of Polybius, "no people are more willing [than the Romans] to adopt new customs and to adopt what they see is better done by others.". As a result of the demands of the Samnite hostilities, a normal consular army was doubled in size to 2 legions, making 4 legions raised annually overall. Roman cavalry in the field thus increased to ca. 1,200 horse. But this now represented only 25% of the army's total cavalry contingent, the rest being supplied by the Italian confederates. A legion's modest cavalry share of 7% of its 4,500 total strength was thus increased to 12% in a confederate army, comparable with (or higher than) any other forces in Italy except the Gauls and also similar to those in Greek armies such as Pyrrhus'.
Political role
Despite an ostensibly democratic constitution based on the sovereignty of the people, the Roman Republic was in reality an oligarchy, in which political power was monopolised by the richest social echelon. The senatorial order did not officially exist and the equites formed a separate group within the highest 6 property-defined electoral classes, that the Roman citizen body was divided into for the purposes of political activity. The equites controlled 18 of the 193 centuriae in the comitia centuriata, which passed Roman laws and annually elected the magistratus rei publicae (Roman magistrates), the Executive Officers of the state: consuls, praetors, aediles, quaestors. The equites' 18 votes, added to the 80 centuriae allocated to the rest of the First Class (over 10,000 drachmae), gave the wealthiest echelon of society an absolute majority of the votes, despite comprising a small minority of the total citizen body. (The lowest class, the proletarii, rated at under 400 drachmae, had just one vote, despite being the most numerous). As a result, the First Class could ensure that the elected Officers were always their own members. In turn, this ensured that the Senate was dominated by the wealthy classes, as its members were chiefly former Executive Officers.
Military officer role
Between ca. 300 BC and the Social War (91-88 BC), the Roman army's structure was essentially that described in detail by Polybius in Book VI of his Histories. Its central formation, the Polybian legion, was made up entirely of temporary conscripts, normally levied for the duration of a campaigning season and disbanded thereafter (although formations could be kept in being over winter during major wars). Service in the legions was considered a privilege and limited to property-owning Roman citizens, so that the majority of Roman foot soldiers came from the families of small freeholders (i.e. peasants who owned small plots of land). (Those assessed at less than 400 drachmae were not admitted to legionary service but were assigned to naval service, as rowers).
Equites equo publico were exclusively eligible to serve as senior officers of the army (fig. 2). These were the 6 tribuni militum in each legion who were elected by the comitia at the start of each campaigning season and took turns to command the legion in pairs; and the praefecti sociorum, the commanders of the Italian confederate alae, who were appointed by the Consuls.
Cavalry role
As their name implies, equites were liable to cavalry service in the Polybian legion. Equites originally provided a legion's entire cavalry contingent, although from an early stage, when equites numbers had become insufficient, large numbers of young men from Infantry Class I were regularly volunteering for the service, which was considered more glamorous than the infantry. By the time of the Second Punic War, it is possible that all members of Class I served in the cavalry, since Livy states that members of Class I were required to equip themselves with a round shield (clipeus), rather than the oblong shield (scutum) required of the other classes - and all images of cavalrymen of this period show round shields. It appears that equites equo privato (i.e. Class I members) were required to pay for their own equipment and horse, but that the latter would be refunded by the state if it was killed in action. Cavalrymen in service were paid 1 drachma per day, triple the infantry rate, and were liable to a maximum of 10 campaigning seasons' military service, compared to 16 for the infantry.
Unit size and structure
Each Polybian legion contained a cavalry contingent of 300 horse, which does not appear to have been officered by an overall commander. The cavalry contingent was divided into 10 turmae (squadrons) of 30 men each. The squadron members would elect as their officers 3 decuriones ("leaders of 10 men"), of whom the first to be chosen would act as the squadron's commander and the other two as his deputies. From the available evidence, the cavalry of a Polybian legion (and presumably confederate cavalry also) was armoured and specialised in the shock charge.
Equipment
Pictorial evidence for the equipment of Republican cavalry is scant and leaves several uncertainties. The earliest extant representations of Roman cavalrymen are found on a few coins dated to the era of the Second Punic War (218-201 BC). In one, the rider wears a variant of a Corinthian helmet and appears to wear greaves on the legs. His body armour is obscured by his small round shield (parma equestris). It was probably a bronze breastplate, as a coin of 197 BC shows a Roman cavalryman in Hellenistic composite cuirass and helmet. But the Roman cavalry may already have adopted chain mail armour (lorica hamata) from the Celts, who are known to have been using it as early as ca. 300 BC. Mail had certainly been adopted by ca. 150 BC, as Polybius states that the First Class were expected to provide themselves with chain mail cuirasses, and the monument erected at Delphi by L. Aemilius Paullus to commemorate his victory at the battle of Pydna (168 BC) depicts Roman cavalrymen in mail. However, a coin of 136 BC and the Lacus Curtius bas-relief of the same period show knights in composite bronze cuirasses.
There is similar uncertainty as to whether cavalryman carried shields (not generally used by Greek cavalry until after ca. 250 BC) and the related question of whether they carried long lances (which normally precluded shields, as they would often be held double-handed) or shorter spears, the doru mentioned by Polybius. Most representations show cavalrymen with the small parma equestris type of shield, but the Ahenobarbus monument of 122 BC and the coin of 136 BC shows cavalrymen without shields. Sidnell suggests that, since equites were expected to provide their own equipment, they may have chosen their own type and combination of armour and weapons e.g. long lance with no shield or short spear with shield. But the evidence is too scant to draw any firm conclusions.
Although there is no pictorial evidence, it is certain from literary accounts that equites carried swords, most likely the same gladii hispanienses (Spanish swords) used by the infantry. The Ahenobarbus monument also shows a cavalrman with a dagger (pugio). There is no evidence that equites carried bows and arrows and the Romans probably had no mounted archers before they came into contact with Parthian forces after 100 BC.
Ethos
From the earliest times and throughout the Republican period, Roman cavalrymen subscribed to an ethos of personal heroism and glory, motivated by the desire to justify their privileged status to the lower classes that provided the infantry ranks, to enhance the renown of their family name, and to augment their chances of subsequent political advancement in a martial society. For equites, a focus of the heroic ethos was the quest for spolia militaria, the stripped armour and weapons of a foe whom they had killed in single combat. There are many recorded instances. For example, Servilius Geminus Pulex, who went on to become consul in 202 BC, was reputed to have gained spolia militaria 23 times throughout his career.
The higher the rank of the opponent killed in combat, the more prestigious the spolia militaria, and none more so than spolia duci hostium detracta, spoils taken from the enemy leader himself.
The most prestigious of the spolia duci hostium detracta were the spolia opima ("rich spoils"), won by Roman commanders-in-chief who emulated Romulus by killing the enemy leader in combat. These were dedicated to the god Jupiter Feretrius and displayed in his temple in Rome alongside those dedicated by Romulus. The honour was accorded only twice in Roman history.
Subordinate Roman officers who killed an enemy leader were accorded the spolia secunda, and ordinary soldiers the spolia tertia. Many equites attempted to gain these spolia, but very few succeeded for the obvious reason that enemy leaders were always surrounded by large numbers of elite bodyguards. One successful attempt, but with a tragic twist, was that of the decurion Titus Manlius Torquatus in 340 BC during the Latin War. Despite strict orders from the consuls (one of whom was his own father) not to engage the enemy, Manlius could not resist accepting a personal challenge from the commander of the Tusculan cavalry, which his squadron encountered while on reconnaissance. There ensued a cavalry joust with the opposing squadrons as spectators, which was won by Manlius, who speared his adversary after the latter was thrown by his horse. But when the young man presented the spoils to his father, the latter had him executed in front of the shocked army for disobeying orders. "Manlius' orders" (Manliana imperia) became a proverbial army term for orders which must on no account be disregarded.
Campaign record
There is a persistent view that Romans of the Republican period were inept at horsemanship and that their cavalry was ineffective and a token adjunct to their far superior infantry. Indeed, some authors have even claimed that Roman cavalry preferred to fight on foot whenever possible, on the basis of a few incidents in which cavalry dismounted to assist their hard-pressed infantry colleagues. But Sidnell argues that this view is misguided and that the cavalry was a powerful and crucial asset to the Republican army. (A similar myth is that the Romans were poor seafarers, despite the fact that in their first major naval war, the First Punic War (264-41 BC), the Romans inflicted a series of crushing naval defeats on the foremost mariners and sea power in the Mediterranean, the Carthaginians, crippling their naval supremacy for good).
Sidnell argues that the record shows that Roman cavalry were a formidable force which won a high reputation for skill and valour in numerous battles of the 3rd century BC. Examples include the Battle of Sentinum (295 BC), in which the cavalry played a crucial role in the Romans' crushing victory over an enormous combined army of Samnites and Gauls. On the left wing, the Romans twice drove back the more numerous and highly-rated Gallic cavalry with spirited frontal charges, but pursued too far and became entangled in a melee with the enemy infantry. This gave the Gauls the opportunity to unleash on the Roman cavalry their chariot forces, whose unfamiliar deep rumbling noise panicked the Roman horses and resulted in a chaotic Roman flight. However, on the right, the Roman cavalry routed the Samnite infantry with a devastating charge on their flank. At Heraclea (280 BC), the Roman cavalry dismayed the enemy leader Pyrrhus by gaining the advantage in a bitterly contested melee against his Thessalian cavalry, then regarded as the finest in the world, and were only driven back when Pyrrhus deployed his elephants, which panicked the Roman horses. At Telamon (225 BC), the Roman cavalry hotly contested a strategic hill on the flank of the battlefield with much more numerous Gallic cavalry. In what developed as a separate cavalry battle before the main infantry engagement began, the Gauls were eventually driven off the hill by repeated Roman charges, enabling the Roman horse to launch a decisive flank attack on the Gallic foot. On the eve of the Second Punic War, therefore, Roman cavalry was a prestigious and much feared force.
A key reason for some historians' disparagement of the Roman cavalry were the crushing defeats, at the Trebia and at Cannae, that it suffered at the hands of the Carthaginian general Hannibal during the latter's invasion of Italy (218-6 BC). But Sidnell points out these reverses were not due to poor performance by the Romans, who fought with their customary courage and tenacity, but to the Hannibalic cavalry's far superior numbers and the operational flexibility afforded by his Numidian light cavalry. Hannibal's already powerful cavalry (6,000 men) that he brought over the Alps, consisting of Spanish cavalry and Numidian light, was swollen by the adherence of most of the Gallic tribes of northern Italy, who provided an additional 4,000, bringing his horse up to 20% of his total force. At Cannae, 6,000 Roman horse (including Italian confederates) faced 10,000 Carthaginians, and on the Roman right wing, the Roman cavalry of 2,400 was probably outnumbered by more than 2 to 1 by Hannibal's Spaniards and Gauls. It is on this wing that the Roman disaster at Cannae was determined, as the Roman cavalry were overwhelmed and broken. In the words of Polybius: "As soon as the Spanish and Celtic horse on the (Carthaginian) left wing came into contact with the Roman cavalry... the fighting which developed was truly barbaric... Once the two forces had met they dismounted and fought on foot, man to man. Here the Carthaginians finally prevailed, and although the Romans resisted with desperate courage, most of them were killed..." In other words, the Romans did not flee, but were simply annihilated in a battle of attrition in which the superior enemy numbers were bound to prevail. The fact that the Romans dismounted has been used to support the thesis of a Roman cavalry that lacked confidence in its horsemanship and was actually just a mounted infantry. But since the Carthaginian cavalry also dismounted, Livy's explanation is more credible, that fighting on horseback was impractical in the confined space between the right flank of the Roman infantry and the river Aufidus.
One reason for Hannibal's cavalry superiority was greater numbers. Whereas the Roman/Italian cavalry constituted about 12% of a confederate army, Carthaginian and Gallic cavalry were around 20% of their respective forces. It also became evident to the Romans that their exclusive reliance on shock cavalry was insufficiently flexible. In addition to superior numbers, Hannibal's cavalry superiority was primarily based on his formidable light Numidian horse. The latter rode bareback, without bridles and unarmoured. They were armed simply with a few javelins and a light leather shield. They were exceptionally fast and manoeuvrable, ideal for harassment, ambushing and scouting. To their standard tactic, of repeatedly approaching the enemy, throwing their javelins and then hastily scattering before the enemy could engage them, the Romans, used to the charge followed by close melee combat, had no effective response. Nevertheless, in the years following Cannae (216-203 BC), the record of Roman cavalry in operations against Hannibal in southern Italy was creditable, scoring a number of successes in cavalry encounters although never depriving the enemy of overall cavalry superiority. The Romans finally succeeded in closing the light cavalry gap with the Carthaginians by winning over the Numidian king Massinissa, previously an ally of Carthage. This enabled the Romans to field at least an equal number of Numidians at the battle of Zama (202 BC), who, outnumbering the Roman/Italian cavalry by 2 to 1, played a vital role in neutralising their compatriots fighting for Hannibal. Even so, it was the Roman cavalry that decided the issue, charging and routing the Carthaginians facing them, then wheeling to attack the Punic infantry in the rear.
The Second Punic War placed unprecedented strains on Roman manpower, not least on the over-10,000 drachmae First Class which provided the cavalry. During Hannibal's apocalyptic march through Italy (218-6 BC), thousands of Roman cavalrymen were killed on the battlefield. The losses were especially serious for the knights properly so-called (equo publico): Livy relates how, after Cannae, the gold rings of dead Roman knights formed a pile one modius (ca. 9 litres) large. In the succeeding years 214-203 BC, the Romans kept at least 21 legions in the field at all times, in Italy and overseas (and 25 legions in the peak year). This would have required the knights to provide 220 senior officers (120 tribuni militum, 60 decuriones and 60 praefecti sociorum). It was probably from this time that the 18 centuriae of knights became largely an officer class, while the 6,300 Roman cavalrymen required were raised from the rest of the First Class.
The cavalry of Roman armies before the 2nd Punic War had been exclusively Roman and confederate Italian, with each holding one wing of the battleline (the Romans usually holding the right wing). After that war, Roman/Italian cavalry was always complemented by allied native cavalry (especially Numidian), and was usually combined on just one wing. Indeed the allied cavalry often outnumbered the combined Roman/Italian force e.g. at Zama, where the 4,000 Numidians held the right, with just 1,500 Romans/Italians on the left. One reason were the lessons learnt in the war, namely the need to complement heavy cavalry with plenty of light, faster horse, as well as increasing the cavalry share when engaging with enemies with more powerful mounted forces. It was also inevitable that, as the Roman Republic acquired an overseas empire and the Roman army now campaigned entirely outside Italy, the best of non-Italian cavalry would be enlisted in increasing numbers, including (in addition to Numidians) Gallic, Spanish and Thracian horse.
Nevertheless, Roman and Italian confederate cavalry continued to form an essential part of a Roman army's line-up for over a century. They were especially effective in wars in the East, where they encountered Hellenistic Macedonian and Seleucid cavalry which fought in set-piece battles using equipment and tactics similar to the Romans' own. For example, at Magnesia (190 BC), 3,000 Roman cavalry on the right wing routed 7,000 facing Syrian and Greek cavalry (including 3,000 cataphracti - Parthian-style heavily armoured cavalry) then wheeled and assisted the legions in breaking the Seleucid phalanx by attacking it in the flank and rear. As earlier in the war against Hannibal, they were less successful against elusive tribal cavalry such as the Lusitanians under Viriathus in their bitter resistance to Roman rule (151-140 BC) and the Numidians themselves under king Jugurtha during the latter's rebellion (112-105 BC), when they were obliged to rely heavily on their own Numidian allied horse.
End of the citizen cavalry
The Jugurthine War is the last war in which Roman/Italian confederate cavalry is attested as having played a significant part. After that references to the citizen cavalry become rare and the Roman army seems to have become largely dependent on non-citizen cavalry, either recruited in the subject provinces or supplied by allied kings. The conventional explanation is that legionary cavalry was abolished as part of the so-called army reforms of Gaius Marius of the army around 107 BC and entirely replaced by native allied cavalry. But the "Marian reforms" are a myth invented by modern historians. There is no evidence that Marius abolished the manipular structure of legions in favour of cohorts, or turned the army from a conscript into a professional force, or removed the property qualification for service in the legions (the latter had been progressively reduced, and anyway largely ignored, since the 2nd Punic War). Even less can it be said that he abolished the citizen cavalry, since it is attested under Marius at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC) and in 82 BC during the civil war between Sulla and Pompey. Far more significant for the army's structural development was the grant of Roman citizenship to all of Rome's Italian confederates after the Social War (91-88 BC). This led to the abolition of the old Italian confederate alae and the recruitment of all Italians into the legions. For the cavalry, the abolition of the alae had the radical result of reducing the Roman/Italian cavalry to just a quarter of its previous size, since legions contained only a third as many horse as confederate alae. Legionary cavalry was thus reduced to a fraction of a Roman army's overall cavalry complement: a consular army of 2 legions now contained about 20% cavalry (i.e. ca. 4,000 horse), of which, at most, only 600 were Romans. Indeed, the Roman element may now have numbered just 240, as it is possible that around this time, the legionary cavalry contingent was reduced to 120. It also appears that from this time onwards, Roman knights were no longer levied for cavalry service, which was now recruited from Italian commoners. By the time of Gaius Julius Caesar's Gallic War (58-51 BC), it appears that legionary cavalry may have disappeared altogether, and that Caesar was entirely dependent on allied Gallic contingents for his cavalry operations. This is deduced from an incident in 58 BC when Caesar was invited to a parley with the German king Ariovistus and needed a cavalry escort. Since he didn't yet trust the allied Gallic cavalry under his command, he instructed them to lend their horses to some members of the Tenth Legion, which thereafter acquired the nickname equestris ("mounted legion"). (However, this incident leaves open the possibility that Roman cavalry still existed, but was not large enough to satisfy the needs of the moment).
The question arises as to why the Romans allowed their citizen cavalry to lapse in this way, given its record as a highly effective and useful force. The main reason is probably the limited pool of eligible First Class members. The equites equo publico had long since become exclusively an officer class. Many equo privato knights had developed major business interests (see below) and had little time for military service. The empire had become simply too large and complex for aristocrats to serve as ordinary troopers and their military role was now limited to that of an officer class (and remained as such throughout the Principate). Although Italian commoners could, of course, have been recruited and trained as cavalrymen in larger numbers, that must have seemed costly and unnecessary when subject countries such as Gaul, Spain, Thrace and Numidia contained large numbers of excellent native cavalry which could be employed at much lower pay than citizens.
Business activities
In 218 BC, the lex Claudia restricted the trading activity of senators and their sons, on the grounds that it was incompatible with their status, limiting them to the ownership of ships with a capacity of not more than 300 amphorae (about 7 tonnes) - this being judged sufficient to carry the produce of their own landed estates but too small to conduct large-scale sea transportation. All other equestrians remained free to invest their wealth, greatly increased by the growth of Rome's overseas empire after the 2nd Punic War, in large-scale commercial enterprises including mining and industry, as well as land. Equestrians became especially prominent in tax farming and, by the 1st century BC, owned virtually all tax-farming companies (publicani).. During the late Republican era, the collection of most taxes was contracted out to private individuals or companies by competitive tender, with the contract for each province or region awarded to the publicanus who bid the highest advance to the state treasury on the estimated tax take of the province. The publicanus would then attempt to recoup his advance, with the right to retain any surplus collected as his profit. This system frequently resulted in extortion from the common people of the provinces (peregrini), who as non-Roman citizens were liable to the poll tax (tributum capitis), because unscrupulous publicani often sought to maximise their profit by demanding a much higher rate than originally set by the government. The provincial governors whose duty it was to curb illegal demands were often bribed into acquiescence by the publicani. The system also led to political conflict between equites publicani and the majority of their fellow-knights, especially senators, who as big landowners wanted to minimise the tax on land outside Italy (tributum solis), which was the main source of state revenue.
This pernicious system was terminated by the first Roman emperor, Augustus (sole rule 30 BC - 14 AD), who transferred responsibility for tax collection from the publicani to the councils of the provincial local authorities (civitates peregrinae). Although the latter also frequently employed private companies to collect their tax quotas, it was in their own interests to curb extortion. Tax collectors were generally paid for their services by being permitted to retain an agreed percentage of the amount collected. During the Principate, publicani became prominent in banking activities such as money-lending and money-changing.
Privileges
The official dress of equestrians was the tunica angusticlavia ("narrow-striped tunic"), worn underneath the toga, in such a manner that the stripe over the right shoulder was visible. Equites bore the title eques Romanus, were entitled to wear an anulus aureus (gold ring) on their left hand, and, from 67 BC, enjoyed privileged seats at games and public functions (just behind those reserved for senators).
The Augustan equestrian order (Principate era)
Differentiation of the senatorial order
In its narrowest sense, the term ordo senatorius encompassed only sitting senators, whose number was held at around 600 by the founder of the Principate, Augustus (sole rule 30 BC-AD 14) and his successors. Senators' sons and further descendants technically retained equestrian rank unless and until they won a seat in the Senate. But Talbert argues that Augustus established the existing senatorial elite as a separate and superior order to the equites for the first time. The evidence for this includes:
- Augustus for the first time set a minimum property requirement for admission to the Senate (of 250,000 denarii, two and a half times the 100,000 denarii that he set for admission to the equestrian order. (This was 10 times the old 10,000 drachmae threshold for the First Property Class in Republican times. For comparison, a legionary's gross annual salary was ca. 225 denarii at this time).
- Augustus for the first time allowed the sons of senators to wear the tunica laticlavia (tunic with broad purple stripes that was the official dress of senators) on reaching their majority even though they were not yet members of the Senate.
- Senators' sons followed a separate cursus honorum (career path) to other equites before entering the Senate: first an appointment as one of the vigintiviri ("Committee of Twenty", a body that included officials with a variety of minor administrative functions), or as an augur (priest), followed by at least a year in the military as tribunus militum laticlavius (deputy commander) of a legion.
- A marriage law of 18 BC (the lex Julia) seems to define not only senators but also their descendants unto the third generation (in the male line) as a distinct group. There was thus established a group of men with senatorial rank (senatorii) wider than just sitting senators (senatores).
The ordo equester under Augustus
As regards the equestrian order, Augustus apparently abolished the rank of equo privato, placing all the order's members in the same rank, equo publico. In addition, Augustus organised the order in a quasi-military fashion, with members enrolled into one of 6 constituent turmae (notional cavalry squadrons). The order's governing body were the seviri ("Committee of Six"), made up of the "commanders" of the turmae. In a bid to foster the knights' esprit de corps, Augustus revived a quinquennial ceremony called the recognitio equitum ("inspection of the equestrians"), in which the order would parade, leading their horses before the consuls (the ceremony had been discontinued during the late Republic.. At some stage during the early Principate, knights acquired the right to style themselves vir egregius ("distinguished gentleman" - senators were styled clarissimus, "most distinguished").
The equestrian order, although hereditary in the male line (i.e. rank could only be inherited from the father, not the mother), was not closed to new recruits. Augustus' legislation permitted any Roman citizen who was assessed in an official census as meeting the property requirement to use the title of eques and wear the special toga and gold ring. But such "property-qualified equites" were not members of the ordo equester itself, but simply enjoyed equestrian status. Only a minority of them were enrolled in the order, those who were granted an equus publicus by the emperor. The imperial equites thus were a two-tiered group, with a large number of rich Italians and provincials of equestrian status (estimated at 25,000 in the 2nd century) and a much smaller number of mainly Italian equites equo publico who were members of the order and were eligible to hold the public offices reserved for the knightly order.
Equestrians could in turn be elevated to senatorial rank (e.g. Pliny the Younger), but in practice this was much more difficult than elevation from commoner to equestrian rank. To join the upper order, not only was the candidate required to meet the minimum property requirement, but also had to be elected a member of the Senate. There were two routes for this, both controlled by the emperor:
- Direct appointment by the emperor (adlectio), normally using the powers of censors during the 1st century but on their own authority thereafter. This was, however, rarely granted except when Senate numbers were severely depleted e.g. in the aftermath of the Civil War of 68-9, when Vespasian's censorship saw large-scale adlectiones.
- The normal route by which the ranks of the Senate were replenished was by way of election to the post of quaestor, 20 of whom were appointed each year. While senators' sons had the right to stand for election as quaestor, equestrians could only do so with the emperor's permission. Later in the Julio-Claudian period, the rule became established that all candidates required imperial leave. The election was conducted, from the time of Tiberius (r.AD 14-37) onwards, by the Senate itself, which inevitably favoured the sons of existing senators. Nevertheless, an equestrian candidate who had received the emperor's implicit backing would be very likely to succeed through the votes of members eager to curry imperial favour.
Because of the restrictions on membership of the Senate, equestrians greatly outnumbered men of senatorial rank. While the latter could not have numbered more than a couple of thousand, equites equo publico numbered many thousands. Even so, together the two aristocratic orders were a tiny elite in a citizen body of ca. 6 million (in AD 47) and an empire with a total population of 60-70 million. During the imperial period, the two orders on the whole cooperated smoothly in the administration of the empire, as they needed to, given their small combined numbers.
Equestrian public careers
In public service, equites equo publico had their own version of the senatorial cursus honorum, or conventional career path, which typically combined military and administrative posts. After an initial period of a few years in local government in their home regions as administrators (aediles, duumviri) or priests (augures), equites were required to serve as military officers for about 10 years before they would be appointed to senior administrative or military posts. Equestrians exclusively provided the praefecti (commanders) of the imperial army's auxiliary regiments and 5 of the 6 tribuni militum (senior staff officers) in each legion. The standard equestrian officer progression was known as the tres militiae ("three services"): (1) praefectus of a cohors (auxiliary infantry regiment), followed by (2) tribunus angusticlavius in a legion, and finally (3) praefectus of an ala (auxiliary cavalry regiment). From the time of Hadrian, a fourth militia was added for exceptionally gifted officers, commander of an ala milliaria (double-strength ala). Each post would be held for 3-4 years.
Most of the top posts in the imperial administration were reserved for senators, who provided the governors of the larger provinces (except Egypt), the legati legionis (legion commanders) of all legions outside Egypt, and the praefectus urbi (prefect of the City of Rome), who controlled the Cohortes Urbanae (public order battalions), the only fully armed force in the City apart from the Praetorian Guard. Nevertheless, a wide range of senior administrative and military posts were created and reserved for equestrians by Augustus, though most ranked below the senatorial posts.
In the administration, equestrian posts included that of the governorship (praefectus Augusti) of the province of Egypt, which was considered the most prestigious of all the posts open to equites, often the culmination of a long and distinguished career serving the state. In addition, equites were appointed to the governorship (procurator Augusti) of some smaller provinces and sub-provinces e.g. Judaea, whose governor was subordinate to the governor of Syria. In addition, equestrians were also the chief financial officers (also called procuratores Augusti) of the imperial provinces, and the deputy financial officers of senatorial provinces. At Rome, equestrians filled numerous senior administrative posts such as the emperor's secretaries of state (from the time of Claudius e.g. Correspondence and Treasury) and the praefecti annonae (director of grain supplies). In the military, equestrians provided the praefecti praetorio (commanders of the Praetorian Guard) who also acted as the emperor's chiefs of military staff). There were normally two of these, but at times irregular appointments resulted in just a single incumbent or even 3 at the same time. Equestrians also provided the praefecti classis (admirals) of the two main imperial fleets at Misenum in the bay of Naples and at Ravenna on the Italian Adriatic coast. Also, the commander of Rome's fire brigade and minor constabulary, the vigiles urbani, was an eques.
Not all equites followed the conventional career path. Those equites who specialised in a legal or administrative career, providing judges (iudices) in Rome's law courts and state secretaries in the imperial government, were granted dispensation from military service by emperor Hadrian (r. AD 117-138). At the same time, many equites became career officers, remaining in the army for much longer than 10 years. After completing their tres militiae, some men would gain promotion to tribuni militum in the Praetorian Guard at Rome, or to praefectus castrorum (prefect of the camp, a legion's third-in-command, beneath the legatus legionis and tribunus militum laticlavius, who were always men of senatorial rank). Others would continue to command auxiliary regiments, moving across units and provinces.
Already wealthy to start with, equites equo publico accumulated even greater riches through holding their reserved senior posts in the administration, which carried enormous salaries (although they were generally smaller than senatorial salaries). For example, the salaries of equestrian procuratores (fiscal and governors) ranged from 15,000 to 75,000 denarii (for the governor of Egypt) per annum, whilst an equestrian praefectus of an auxiliary cohort was paid ca. 50 times as much as a common foot soldier (ca. 10,000 denarii). A praefectus could thus earn in one year the same as two of his auxiliary rankers combined earned during their entire 25-year service terms.
Relations with emperor
It was suggested by ancient writers, and accepted by many modern historians, that Roman emperors trusted equestrians more than men of senatorial rank, and used the former as a political counterweight to the senators. According to this view, senators were often regarded as potentially less loyal and honest by the emperor, as they could become powerful enough, through the command of provincial legions, to launch coups. They also had greater opportunities for peculation as provincial governors. Hence the appointment of equestrians to the most sensitive military commands. In Egypt, which supplied much of Italy's grain needs, the governor and the commanders of both provincial legions were drawn from the equestrian order, since placing a senator in a position to starve Italy was considered too risky. The commanders of the Praetorian Guard, the principal military force close to the emperor at Rome, were also usually drawn from the equestrian order. Also cited in support of this view is the appointment of equestrian fiscal procuratores, reporting direct to the emperor, alongside senatorial provincial governors. These would supervise the collection of taxes and act as watchdogs to limit opportunities for corruption by the governors (as well as managing the imperial estates in the province).
According to Talbert, however, the evidence suggests that equites were no more loyal or less corrupt than senators. For example, ca. 26 BC, the equestrian governor of Egypt, Gaius Cornelius Gallus, was recalled for politically suspect behaviour and sundry other misdemeanours. His conduct was deemed sufficiently serious by the Senate to warrant the maximum penalty of exile and confiscation of assets. Under Tiberius, both the senatorial governor and the equestrian fiscal procurator of Asia province were convicted of corruption. There is evidence that emperors were as wary of powerful knights as they were of senators. Augustus enforced a tacit rule that senators and prominent equestrians must obtain his express permission to enter the province of Egypt, a policy that was continued by his successors. Also, the command of the Praetorian Guard was normally split between two knights, to reduce the potential for a successful coup d'état. At the same time, command of the second military force in Rome, the cohortes urbanae, was entrusted to a senator.
Equestrians in the later empire (AD 197-395)
Rise of the military equestrians (3rd century)
The third century saw two major trends in the development of the Roman aristocracy: (1) the progressive takeover of the top positions in the empire's administration and army by military equestrians and the concomitant exclusion of the Italian aristocracy, both senators and knights; (2) the growth in hierarchy within the aristocratic orders.
A significant exception to the property requirement for equites status was Augustus' practice, followed by his successors, of elevating to the ordo equester the primuspilus (chief centurion) of each legion, at the end of his single year in the post. This resulted in about 30 career soldiers, often risen from the ranks, joining the order every year. These equites primipilares and their descendants formed a section of the equites which was quite distinct from the Italian aristocrats who had become nearly indistinguishable from their senatorial counterparts. They were almost entirely provincials, especially Romanised Illyrians and Thracians from the Danubian provinces where about half the Roman army was deployed. They were generally far less wealthy than the landowning Italians (not benefiting from centuries of inherited wealth) and they rarely held non-military posts.
Their professionalism led emperors to rely on them ever more heavily, especially in difficult conflicts such as the Marcomannic Wars. But because they were only equestrians, they could not be appointed to the top military commands, those of legatus Augusti (governor of an imperial province) and legatus legionis (commander of a legion). In the later second century, emperors tried to resolve the problem by elevating large numbers of primipilares to senatorial rank by adlectio. But this was apparently unpopular in the Senate, so that in the third century, emperors simply started appointing equestrians directly to the top commands, under the fiction that they were only temporary substitutes (praeses pro legato). Septimius Severus (r. AD 193-211) appointed primipilares to command the 3 new legions that he raised in 197 for his Parthian War. Gallienus (r. AD 253-268) completed the process by appointing equites to command all the legions. But these appointees were mostly provincial soldier-equestrians, not Italian aristocrats.
Under the reforming emperor Diocletian (r. AD 284-305), himself an Illyrian equestrian officer, the military equestrian "takeover" was brought a stage further, with the removal of hereditary senators from most administrative, as well as military posts. Hereditary senators were limited to administrative jobs in Italy and a few neighbouring provinces (Sicily, Africa, Achaea and Asia), despite the fact that senior administrative posts had been greatly multiplied by the tripling of the number of provinces and the establishment of dioceses (super-provinces). The exclusion of the old Italian aristocracy, both senatorial and equestrian, from the political and military power that they had monopolised for many centuries was thus complete. The Senate became politically insignificant, although it retained great prestige.
The 3rd and 4th centuries saw the proliferation of hierarchical ranks within the aristocratic orders, in line with the greater stratification of society as a whole, which was divided into two classes, with discriminatory rights and privileges, the honestiores ("more noble") and humiliores ("more base"). Equestrians were divided into 5 grades, depending on the offices they held: (in ascending order) egregii or sexagenarii (salary of 60,000 sesterces = 15,000 denarii), centenarii (100,000), ducenarii (200,000), and the perfectissimi ("most accomplished" - 300,000), the latter grade including equestrian procuratores. The top grade, the eminentissimi ("most exalted") included only the praefecti praetorio, the 2 commanders of the Praetorian Guard and, with the establishment of Diocletian's Tetrarchy, the 4 Praetorian Prefects that assisted the Tetrarchs, each ruling over a quarter of the empire.
The idle aristocracy (4th century)
From the reign of Constantine I the Great (312-37) onwards, there was an explosive increase in the membership of both aristocratic orders. Under Diocletian, the number of sitting members of the Senate remained at around 600, the level it had retained for the whole duration of the Principate. But Constantine established Byzantium as a twin capital of the empire, with its own senate, initially of 300 members. By 387, their number had swollen to 2,000, while the Senate in Rome probably reached a comparable size. The main cause was the rise in honorary grants of membership, especially to decuriones (local authority councillors, not to be confused with the cavalry officer rank).
At the same time the equites were also expanded vastly by the proliferation of public posts in the late empire, most of which were now filled by equestrians. The Principate had been a remarkably slimline administration, with ca. 250 senior officials running the vast empire, relying on local government and private contractors to deliver the necessary taxes and services. By the time of the Notitia, comparable positions had grown to ca. 6,000, a 24-fold increase. In addition, large numbers of decuriones were granted equestrian rank, often obtaining it by bribery, in order to gain exemption from the financial obligations of local office (onera curialia from curia, the name for a local council). Finally, officials of ever lower rank were granted equestrian rank as reward for good service e.g. the actuarii (accountants) of military regiments (365). This inflation in knights' numbers inevitably led to the debasement of the order's prestige. The lowest rank, the egregii drops out of the record in 324, while the perfectissimi were further divided into 3 ranks. By the end of the 4th century, the equites were no longer a high echelon of nobility, but just a title associated with middle-level civil service posts. Even the tribuni militum (regimental commanders) of the army were now accorded senatorial rank. The senatorial order, having itself lost its super-elite status, had eclipsed and effectively displaced the equites.
Constantine established a third order of nobility, the comites ("companions", from comes, the origin of the medieval noble rank of count). This overlapped with senators and equites, drawing members from both. Originally, the comites consisted of very senior administrative and military officials, such as the commanders of imperial escort armies (comitatus). But the comites rapidly followed the same path as equites in the 4th century, being devalued by excessive grants until the order became meaningless.
In the late 4th and in the 5th century, therefore, the western senatorial class at Rome was the closest equivalent to the equestrian class of the early Principate. It remained predominantly Italian (in domicile, if not in origin) and contained many ancient and illustrious families, some of which claimed descent from the aristocracy of the Republic. But it also contained many persons of less exalted origins. It had, as described, lost almost all political and military power. But it remained influential due to its enormous inherited wealth and its role as the guardians of Roman tradition and culture. Centuries of capital accumulation, in the form of vast landed estates (latifundia) across many provinces resulted in enormous wealth for the Roman senators. Many received annual rents in cash and in kind of over 5,000 lbs of gold, equivalent to 360,000 solidi (or 5 million Augustan-era denarii), at a time when a miles (common soldier) would earn no more than 4 solidi a year in cash. Even senators of middling wealth received 1,000-1,500 lbs. The 4th century historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a former high-ranking military staff officer who spent his retirement years in Rome, bitterly attacks the Italian aristocracy, denouncing their extravagant palaces, clothes, games and banquets and above all their lives of total idleness and frivolity. In his words can be heard the contempt for the senatorial class of a career soldier who had spent his lifetime defending the empire, a view clearly shared by Diocletian and his Illyrian successors. But it is the latter who reduced the aristocracy to that state, by displacing them from their traditional role of governing the empire and leading the army.
See also
Citations
Ancient
Modern
- Burton, G. (1987): Government and the Provinces. In J. Wacher ed. The Roman World Vol I
- Cornell, T. J. (1995): The Beginnings of Rome
- Eck, Werner (2000): Emperor, Senate & Magistrates. In Cambridge Ancient History 2nd Ed. Vol XI
- Goldsworthy, Adrian (2000): Roman Warfare
- Goldsworthy, Adrian (2003): The Complete Roman Army
- Heather, Peter (2005): Fall of the Roman Empire
- Jones, A.H.M. (1964): Later Roman Empire
- Ritner, R.K. (1998): Egypt Under Roman Rule: the Legacy of Ancient Egypt. In Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol I. Ed. C.F. Petry. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Scheidel, Walter (2006): Population & Demography (Princeton-Stanford Working Papers in Classics)
- Sidnell, Philip (2006): Warhorse
- Smith W. (1890): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
- Talbert, Richard (1996): The Senate and Senatorial and Equestrian Posts. In Cambridge Ancient History, Vol X 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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