Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

474 EQUITES..EQUITES.
be qualified by his fortune to possess one, and aot Augustus formed a select class of equites, conto be a senator. The number of judices, who were sisting of those equites who possessed the property
required yearly, was chosen from this class by the of a senator, and the old requirement of free birth
praetor urbanus. (Klenze,Lex Servilia, Berl. 1825.) up to the grandfather. He permitted this class to
As the name of equites had been originally ex- wear the latEs clatBs (Ovid. Trist. iv. 10. 35)
tended from those who possessed the public horses and also allowed the tribunes of the plebs to be
to those who served with their own horses, it now chosen from them, as well as the senators, and gave
came to be applied to all those persons who were them the option at the termination of their office to
qualified by their fortune to act as judices, in which remain in the senate or return to the equestrian
sense the word is usually used by Cicero. Pliny order. (Suet. Aug. 40; Dion Cass. liv. 30.) This
(UI. N. xxxiii. 7) indeed says that those persons class of knights was distinguished by the special
who possessed the equestrian fortune, but did not title illustles (soInetimes insiguzes and splendlidi)
serve as equites, were only called jzdices, and that equites Romnazi. (Tacit. Ann. xi. 4, with the note
the name of equites was always confined to the of Lipsius.)
possessors of the equi publici. This may have The formation of this distinct class tended to
been the correct use of the term; but custom soon lower the others still more in public estimation.
gave the name of equites to the judices chosen in In the ninth year of the reign of Tiberius an ataccordance with the Lex Sempronia. tempt was made to improve the order by requiring
After the reform of Sulla, which entirely de- the old qualifications of free birth up to the grandprived the equestrian order of the right of being father, and by strictly forbidding any one to wear
chosen as judices, and the passing of the Lex Au- the gold ring unless he possessed this qualification.
-relia (B. c. 70), which ordained that the judices This regulation, however, was of little avail, as the
should be chosen from the senators, equites, and emperors frequently admitted freedmen into the
tribuni aerarli, the influence of the order, says equestrian order. (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 8.) WVhen
Pliny, was still maintained by the publicani (Plin. private persons were no longer appointed judices,
I. N. xxxiii. 8), or farmers of the public taxes. W~e the necessity for a distinct class in the community,
find that the publicani were almost always called like the equestrian order, ceased entirely; and the
equites, not because any particular rank was neces- gold ring came at length to be worn by all free
sary in order to obtain from the state the farming citizens. Even slaves, after their manumission,.of the taxes, but because the state naturally were allowed to wear it by special permission from
would not let them to any one who did not possess the emperor, which appears to have been usually
a considerable fortune. Thus the publicani are. granted provided the patronus consented. (Dig. 40.
frequently spoken of by Cicero as identical with tit. 10. s. 3.) [ANNUI,US.]
the equestrian order (Ad Alt. ii. 1. ~ 8). [PiB- Having thus traced the history of the equestrian
LICANI.] The consulship of Cicero and the active order to its final extinction as a distinct class in
part which the knights then took in suppressing the community, we must now return to the equites
the conspiracy of Catiline, tended still further to equo publico, who formned the eighteen equestrian
increase the power and influence of the equestrian centuries. This class still existed during the latter
order; and " from that time," says Pliny (1. c.), years of the republic, but had entirely ceased to
" it became a third body (cospuTs) in the state, and, serve as horse-soldiers in the army. The cavalry
to the title of Senatus Populuzsque Romanus, there of the Roman legions no longer consisted, as in the
began to be added E, Equzestris Ordo." time of Polybius, of Roman equites, but their place
In B. c. 63, a distinction was conferred upon was supplied by the cavalry of the allied states.
them, which tended to separate them still further It is evident that Caesar in his Gallic wars
from the plebs. By the Lex Roscia Othonis, possessed no Roman cavalry. (Caes. Bell. Gall.
passed in that year, the first fourteen seats in the i. 15.) When he went to an interview with
theatre behind the orchestra were given to the Ariovistus, and was obliged to take cavalry with:eqllites (Liv. Epit. 99); which, according to Cicero him, we are told that he did not dare to trust his
(pro IMulr. 19) and Velleins Paterculus (ii. 32), safety to the Gallic cavalry, and therefore mounted
was only a restoration of an ancient privilege; his legionary soldiers upon their horses. (Id. i. 42.)
-which is alluded to by Livy (i. 35), when he says The Roman equites are, however, frequently menthat special seats were set apart in the Circus tioned in the Gallic and civil wars, but never as
5:Iaximus for the senators and equites. They also common soldiers; they were officers attached to the
possessed the right of wearing the Clavus Angus- staff of the general, or commanded the cavalry of
tus [CLAvus]; and subsequently obtained the the allies, or sometimes the legions. (Id. vii. 70;
privilege of wearing a gold ring, which was origi- Bell. Civ. i. 77, iii. 71, &c.)
nally confined to the equites equo publico. After the year B. c. 50, there were no censors in
The number of equites increased greatly under the state, and it would therefore follow that for some
the early emperors, and all persons were admitted years no review of the body took place, and that
into the order, provided they possessed the requisite the vacancies were not filled up. When Augustus
property, without any inquiry into their character however took upon himself, in B. C. 29, the pracor into the free birth of their father and grand- fectura anorum, he frequently reviewed the troops
father, which had always been required by the of equites, and restored, according to Suetonius.censors under the republic. Property became now (Aug. 38), the long-neglected custom of the solemn
the only qualification; and the order in conse- procession (transvectio); by which we are probably
quence gradually began to lose all the consideration to understand that Augustus connected the review
which it had acquired during the later times of the of the knights (recogizitio) with the annual procesrepublic. Thus Horace (Ep. i. 1. 58) says, with sion (transvectio) of the 15th of July. From this
no small degree of contempt, - time these equites formed an honourable corps,
Si quadringentis sex septem milia desunt,, from which all the higher officers in the army
Plebs eris. (Suet. Alyu. 38, Claud. 25) and the chief magis