07-01-2009, 10:15 AM
Publius Valerius Publicola(d. ~503 BC) speaks to the plebeians in your quote above(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI 44):
"But the thing in particular which has occasioned the greatest indignation against me is that, in raising the army, more than four hundred well?to?do plebeians were added to the knights."
This might be the first few plebeians raised to the Equites rank i.e. the first of the 12 centuries of pleibeian Equites?
The point is that the senate was pissed off regarding this... It was not normal and not acceptable...As I understand it the equites class was orginally founded based on patricians only, 6 centuries of them. Equestrian rank was thus hereditary. When the need for more cavalry arouse, 12 centuries of census class 1 plebeians were added to the same class and granted the privileges this class enjoyed.
Of course over time the patricians ceased to exist per se and was instead replaced by the senatorial class, who then filled the equestrians ranks with their sons etc....
Yes I know that, according to Livy, in a crisis during the siege of Veii the Equites Equo Privato was created for the first time. The problem is I do not know for how long they remained in service... You believe they were disbanded after the battle then? Loads of other authors seems to believe they remained in service throughout the republic, Mommsen is one of these authors. I am bad at the numbers of the roman republican army, but would the romans need more cavalry if they only assigned 3 centuries of Equites to each legion(?). The 18 centuries would then cover 6 legions, what did they do if they needed more than 6 legions? How often did that happen?
Cheers,
Jesper
"But the thing in particular which has occasioned the greatest indignation against me is that, in raising the army, more than four hundred well?to?do plebeians were added to the knights."
This might be the first few plebeians raised to the Equites rank i.e. the first of the 12 centuries of pleibeian Equites?
The point is that the senate was pissed off regarding this... It was not normal and not acceptable...As I understand it the equites class was orginally founded based on patricians only, 6 centuries of them. Equestrian rank was thus hereditary. When the need for more cavalry arouse, 12 centuries of census class 1 plebeians were added to the same class and granted the privileges this class enjoyed.
Of course over time the patricians ceased to exist per se and was instead replaced by the senatorial class, who then filled the equestrians ranks with their sons etc....
Yes I know that, according to Livy, in a crisis during the siege of Veii the Equites Equo Privato was created for the first time. The problem is I do not know for how long they remained in service... You believe they were disbanded after the battle then? Loads of other authors seems to believe they remained in service throughout the republic, Mommsen is one of these authors. I am bad at the numbers of the roman republican army, but would the romans need more cavalry if they only assigned 3 centuries of Equites to each legion(?). The 18 centuries would then cover 6 legions, what did they do if they needed more than 6 legions? How often did that happen?
Cheers,
Jesper
Cheers,
Jesper
Jesper
