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Equestrian order
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.[2] 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.[3] This cavalry regiment was supposedly doubled in size to 600 men by King Tarquinius Priscus (conventional dates 616-578 BC).[4] 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).[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] According to Livy, Servius Tullius also established a further 12 centuriae of cavalry.[8] 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).[9]. This is confirmed by the fact that in the early Republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong (2 legions with 300 horse each).[10] 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.[11]
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.[12]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.[13]a[›] 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.[14]
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.b[›] Indeed, Alfoldi suggests that the coup was carried out by the Celeres themselves.[15] 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.[16]
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.[17]c[›] 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.[18] 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.[19] 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.[20]
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).[21] 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.[22] 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.[23] 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[24]
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.[25]
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.[26] 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.[27]
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.[28] 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").[29] 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).[30]
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.[31] 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.[32] 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.".[33] 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.[34] 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'.[35]