Equites Stablesiani

[D B Campbell]

Does anyone know what 'stablesiani' actually means?

I was hoping that someone might be able to give you answer, Nathan. I've never been entirely convinced by Professor Speidel's theory, that "the stablesiani served with the stablensis, an otherwise unknown officer in charge of the stables".*

It's true that our word "stable" derives from the Latin stabulum, and Ammianus Marcellinus mentions an officer called the "tribune of the stable" (tribunus stabuli, 30.5.19). But his men were called stratores, not stablesiani.

* M.P. Speidel, "Stablesiani. The raising of new cavalry units during the crisis of the Roman empire", Chiron 4 (1974), pp. 541-546 = Speidel, Roman Army Studies I (1984), pp. 391-396.