Roman Equestrian Order - Regal Era (753 To 509 BC)

Regal Era (753 To 509 BC)

According to Roman legend, Rome was founded by its first king, Romulus, in 753 BC. However, archaeological evidence suggests that Rome did not acquire the character of a unified city-state (as opposed to a number of separate hilltop settlements) until c. 625 BC. According to the Roman historian Livy, Romulus established three centuries of equites, totalling 300 men. The centuries were named the Ramnenses, Tatienses and Luceres. These were then supposedly doubled by one of his successors.

According to Livy, king Servius Tullius established a further 12 centuriae of cavalry. But this is unlikely, as it would have increased the cavalry to 1,800 horse, implausibly large compared to 8,400 infantry (in peninsular Italy, cavalry typically constituted about 8% of a field army). This is confirmed by the fact that in the early Republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong (2 legions with 300 horse each). Apparently, knights were originally provided with a sum of money by the state to purchase a horse for military service and for its fodder. This was known as an equus publicus.

Mommsen argues that the royal cavalry was drawn exclusively from the ranks of the Patricians (patricii), the aristocracy of early Rome, which was purely hereditary. Apart from the traditional association of the aristocracy with horsemanship, the evidence for this view is the fact that, during the Republic, 6 centuriae (voting constituencies) of equites in the comitia centuriata (electoral assembly) retained the names of the original 6 royal cavalry centuriae. These are very likely "the centuriae of patrician nobles" in the comitia mentioned by the lexicologist Festus. If this view is correct, it implies that the cavalry was exclusively patrician (and therefore hereditary) in the regal period. (However, Cornell considers the evidence tenuous).