equestrian order

In ancient Rome, originally the census (property) class of equites, consisting of those citizens (including senators) with enough wealth to serve as cavalry in the army, although they often also provided junior officers. During the 2nd century BC they were increasingly replaced by Roman auxiliary cavalry (auxilia), but remained important as financiers, entrepreneurs, and landowners.

The reformer Gaius Gracchus 123 BC gave the equites the role of judices (jurors) in important trials in place of senators. The involvement of a section of the equestrian order in tax contracts, finance, and commerce led to their constituting a more or less cohesive political force in the later republic. Under the empire, the equites (like the senators) lost their political influence, but at the public level served as junior army officers and imperial officials. The two most pre-eminent equestrian posts were the praefectus Aegypti (governor of Egypt) and praefectus praetorii (commander of the Praetorian Guard).

The cavalry consisted at first of three patrician centuriae (divisions of 100) which were later increased to six. The addition of 12 plebeian centuriae was attributed to Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome (traditionally ruled 578-534 BC), and 18 remained the number throughout the republican period.

Membership Members were chosen from among the wealthier citizens first by the Curiae (the early divisions of the Roman people), then successively by the kings, consuls, and (after 443 BC) the censors. Service was so costly that state aid was given towards the upkeep of horses. Early in the 4th century the number of equites was increased by volunteers who kept horses of their own (equites equo privato as opposed to equites equo publico), and from this period service in the cavalry with either a public or a private horse was made obligatory for all Roman citizens above a certain level of wealth.

Loss of military function As Rome extended its territory, it was supplied with more efficient cavalry by its allies and subject peoples. In this way the equites lost their military character and, although many were officers in the army, they became primarily a landowning, business, and commercial group which handled state contracts and controlled the public revenues. Some, but not all, became very wealthy.

Control of the courts and other rights The reformer Gaius Gracchus gave the equestrian class control of the jury-courts and the right to bid as a unit for the revenues of Asia. Sulla restored the courts to the Senate 82 BC, but at the same time raised 300 equites to senatorial rank. After the Lex Aurelia 70 BC juries were made up of equal numbers of senators, equites, and tribuni aerarii (effectively a subdivision of the equestrian order). Julius Caesar scrapped the technical distinction between tribuni aerarii and equites. Equites were also entitled to wear a narrow purple stripe on their tunics (senators had a broad purple stripe). Special seats in the theatre were secured for them 67 BC.

Under the empire Under the empire the number of equites expanded greatly. They supplied officers for the army, jurors, and procurators and other civil servants, and the emperor Hadrian administered the empire almost entirely through equites. From the reign of Vespasian (AD 69-79) onwards, equites increasingly replaced freedmen as the chief imperial secretaries (the biographer Suetonius, an eques, was correspondence secretary to the emperor Hadrian).