EQUESTRIAN ORDER, or E'QUITES. This body originally formed the cavalry of the Roman army, and is said to have been instituted by Romulus, who selected from the three principal Roman tribes 300 equitcs. This number was afterwards gradually increased to 3,600, who were partly of patrician and partly of plebeian rank, and required to possess a certain amount of property. Each of these equites received a horse frem the state; but about 403 B.C., a new body of equites began to make their appearance, who were obliged to furnish a horse at their own expense. These were probably wealthy nori ltomines, men of equestrian fortune, but not descended from the old equites (for it should be observed that the equestrian dignity was hereditary). Until 123 B.C., the equites were exclusively a military body; but in that year Cams Gracehus carried a measure, by which all the judices had to be selected from them. Now, for the first time,
they became a distinct order or class in the state, and were called ordo equestris. In 70 B.C., Sella deprived them of this privilege; but their power did not then decrease, as the forming of the public revenues appears to have fallen into their hands. After the conspiracy of Catiline, the E. 0., which on that memorable occasion had vigorously sup ported the consul Cicero, began to be looked upon as a third estate in the republic; and to the title of senates populusque Romanus was added of equestris ordo. But, even in the beginning of the empire, the honor, like many others, was so indiscriminately and profusely conferred, that it fell into contempt, and the body gradually became extinct. As early as the later wars of the republic, the equites had ceased to constitute the com mon soldiers of the Roman cavalry, and figure only as officers.