Equestrian Order

Equestrian Order, or EQUITES. This body originally formed the cavalry of the Roman army, and is said to have been instituted by Romulus, who selected from the three principal Roman tribes 300 equites. This number was afterwards gradually increased to 3600, who were partly of patrician and partly of plebeian rank, and required to possess a certain amount of property. Each of these equites received a horse and 'barley-money' from the state; but about 400 B.C. a new body of equites began to make their appearance, who were obliged to furnish a horse at their own expense, although they received regular pay. These were probably wealthy novi homines, men of equestrian fortune, but not descended from the old equites. Until 123 B.C. the equites were exclusively a military body; but in that year a measure was carried transferring the judicial functions from the senate to the equestrian body, which now became a distinct order or class in the state, and was called Ordo Equestris. In 70 B.C. Sulla deprived them of these powers; but their influence did not then decrease, as the farming of the public revenues had fallen into their hands; and after Sulla's death they shared their former privilege with the senate. Under the emperors, when the requisite fortune of an eques seems to have been about £3230, the state still furnished horses for what was no longer the national cavalry; but as the honour, indiscriminately conferred, fell into contempt, foreign auxiliaries took the place of the old knights, and the body gradually became extinct.