Words like "knight" and " senator" had been synonyms. Always, the knights had been wealthy and had governed the empire. The elite of the Roman empire still called itself "knights", but like a knighthood today, it did not mean that one really fought on horseback.Īt the same time, the Roman elite slowly started to change.
As a result, the equestrian centuries lost their military function. In the late third century, Rome started to rely upon its allies as cavalry men, and in the second century, this development continued. (Although the fact that the people were divided belongs to the age of kings, it is likely that these specific numbers date back to the fourth century BCE.) Changes When the centuries came together to vote, the cavalry centuries cast their 18 votes first, followed by the 172 remaining centuries, and one additional vote for those who were too poor to serve in the army but still had a political vote. The Roman historian Livy offers a description of a complex system with 18 centuries of cavalry, 170 centuries of infantry, and 2 centuries of engineers. It is said that king Servius Tullius divided the Roman nation into centuries, which were not only units of soldiers on the battlefield but also voting units in the comitia centuriata. In our sources, the knights are both a military and a political group. Why should the rich be subsidized? A possible explanation is that Rome needed a lot of horsemen and had only a few rich people alternatively, the rich had found a way to become even richer. Consequently, it was prestigious to own and ride a horse: you could show that you were rich and did not have to work.Īrchaic Rome was probably no exception to this rule, although it is a bit puzzling that the horsemen received financial compensation to buy a horse (the equus publicus, "horse bought by the commonwealth").
#Knighthood the ancient one how to#
After all, horses needed to eat but were rather useless because no one knew how to harness them to a cart or plow, and as the stirrup had not yet been invented, it took a lot of time to learn to ride. Still, ancient armies needed cavalry, and the horsemen usually belonged to the highest classes, because no one else could afford a horse. Horsemen were only employed to escort troops or at the end of battles, to attack and protect refugees. In Classical Antiquity, most armies consisted of infantry.
Under the empire, they were "second tier", after the senators. Knight (Latin eques): title of members of the elite of the Roman republic.