Cavalry Cohorts

[Nathan Ross]

2724 is the ILS number.

Thanks, Michael.

There's a paper here by David Kennedy about Lollianus' command, highlighting (among other things) the difficulties of working out how many alae were involved; Kennedy believes that the list should be dated earlier - perhaps to Hadrian's response to the 'Parthian war scare' - he also suggests that the force was all cavalry, with troopers drawn from the mounted sections of cohortes equitata; I'm not sure if that's necessary, as other big vexillations seem to combine auxiliary infantry and cavalry, and not all the cohorts listed seem to be part-mounted anyway. Depends on the reading of item I suppose?...

There are other inscriptions to mounted vexillations from the 2nd-3rd centuries, usually commanded by praepositi or duces. Valerius Valerianus's vexillation command in the early wars of Severus was probably all cavalry, with horsemen drawn from various Danubian alae.

At some point, probably late 3rd century, vexillatio(ne) eq(q)uitum shifts meaning from a mixed force of cavalry detachments to a single unit.