EQUITES, an order of men in the commonwealth of Rome, to which we can furnish no exact parallel in modern times. They seem, indeed, to have resembled in some degree the gentry of England; with this difference however, that they enjoyed peculiar privileges, and were more of a separate caste than any body of men which can now be pointed out. Their origin goes back to the earliest times of Roman history, though we can perceive, even from the legendary statements of Livy and Dionysius, that their constitution and mode of selection had been changed in the course of ages. During the reign of the kings they evidently appear to have been of noble birth, the younger branches of patrician families. This we may infer from the statement of Polybius (vi. 20), when he says that the knights now are chosen according to fortune, evidently intimating that their selection had depended on a different principle at a previous period. Romulus is said to have divided them into three centuries; and the very names of Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres, by which he designated them, point out distinctly their high origin. Both Tullus Hostilius and Tarquinius added to their number; but it was Servius Tullius (576 B. c.) who first organised them into a distinct body, and compelled the state to contribute annually to their maintenance. It is difficult to perceive in what way we are to explain the statement of Livy (i. 43), that the sum of ten thousand pounds of brass was given to each for the purchase of a horse; an enormous sum, when compared with that at which oxen and sheep were rated in the table of penalties. They were bound of course to be provided with a noble steed, and may have been obliged to replace it if it fell from any casualty in war. The accoutrements, too, and a slave to take charge of it, were possibly all included in this large sum. But whether, when the censor ordered the knight to sell his horse, it was the intention that the outfit money should be refunded to the state, we have now no means of determining. Livy tells us also that a tax was imposed on each vidua, of two thousand pounds of brass, to maintain a knight’s horse. This certainly sounds very strange; for it seems inconceivable that there should have been such a large number of rich widows; and even though we understand by the word vidua every single woman, maiden as well as widow, we do not think that we thereby get out of the difficulty.

As early as 400 b. c. we find that a certain fortune was required to enable a man to be raised to the rank of eques. In that year, at the siege of Veii, we are told that those who possessed the requisite fortune, but to whom horses had not been assigned, offered to provide these at their on expense. This proposal was accepted; and then it was, according to Livy (v. 7), that they first received regular pay. In 303 B. c. the censors Q. Fabius and P. Decius established a law, by which it was ordained that every fifth year a procession of the equites should take place, and that those who had misconducted themselves should be degraded from their rank. They now evidently became a very powerful body in the state; yet in 186 b. c. we find it allowed as a reward to P. Aebutius, that the censor should not assign him a public horse, and thereby compel him to serve as an eques against his will. This proves that the duties must have been burdensome, and regarded by many with distaste. In the later times of the republic they increased in power and consequence, when the judicial functions were transferred from the senate to the body of equites by the Sempronian law, passed by C. Gracchus about 123 b∙ c ∙> and a short time afterwards they became the farmers of the public revenues, which enabled them to amass immense riches. Sylla deprived them of their judicial powers; but they now possessed too much influence in the state to c excluded from the higher and more dignified offices. A to r his death they were again admitted to their former pofl er, which, however, they shared with the senate.

Towards the end of the republic, and under the emp e rors, the fortune requisite for an eques seems to have been [7:9:353]four hundred sestertia, equal to about L.3229 of our money; and even at this time knights’ horses were furnished by the state, as we find by ancient inscriptions of that period. (Gruter. Inscrip. 404.)