military tribunes. lots of Q\'s

[drsrob]

As to their being mounted, the answer depends. Augustus tried to reconnect the members of the equestrian class to cavalry (cf. [url:1mhnkwrl]http://www.livius.org/ei-er/eques/eques.html[/url]), which suggests that in earlier times, the Roman elite did not always serve as knights. Still, it is hard to imagine a high officer not being mounted.

An interesting article, Jona. However I have to disagree with certain points. The six separate centuries (the sex suffragia or six votes) did not vote before, but after the rest of the first class. Cf. Cicero, Philippica II, 82:

[...] Ecce Dolabellae comitiorum dies! [XXXIII] Sortitio praerogativae; quiescit. Renuntiatur; tacet. Prima classis vocatur, renuntiatur; deinde, ita ut adsolet, suffragia; tum secunda classis vocatur; quae omnia sunt citius facta, quam dixi.

That the suffragia are cavalry centuriae can be concluded from Cicero, De re publica II,39:

[...]ut equitum centuriae cum sex suffragiis et prima classis, addita centuria quae ad summum usum urbis fabris tignariis est data, LXXXVIIII centurias habeat[...]

The sex suffragia or six votes must be older then the 12 centuriae. Their name implies as much. Moreover, 12 centuriae are the nominal complement (1200 knights) of a four legion-army. They must therefore date from after 311 BC, when the number of elected tribunes was expanded from 12 to 24.
In historical times they were the preserve of the senatorial class, but they cannot have been so in the beginning. The issue of a public horse must be a relic from archaic times. So originally the horsemen probably were not aristocrats. This squares better with what we know of the early republic. For instance, that the magister equitum was subordinate to the dictator and that the latter, just like the priest of Jupiter was by religious protocol forbidden to mount a horse.

Tasks: this depends on the period. Tribunes are recorded in many situations. For example, the decisive tactical manoeuver at Cynoscephalae was led by a tribune, who had, therefore, serious military tasks. Theoretically, this was also the case during the empire. However, a man like Pliny the Younger only records his activities as accountant.

The original task of the tribunes was to organise the levy. (see Polybius, book VI). From this came the status of staff officer. In Hellenistic armies, including the Roman ones, officers led from the front and right of the line. Originally this included every officer up to the general, but in later centuries and especially in the Roman Army, generals started to supervise from the rear. And so did the tribunes.

Knights were allowed to wear golden rings and white togas with a narrow purple stripe.

Until Augustus only certain knights wore the gold ring. Apparently the equites equo publico. Knights wore a tunica with small purple borders but no special toga. In imperial times they wore the trabea, at least during the ancient ceremony of the transvectio equorum.