EQUESTRIAN ORDER, or EQUITES, the order of knights in ancient Rome (Latin ordo equester). The et-mites or lcnights orig inally formed the cavalry of the army. They are said by Livy to have been instituted by Romulus? who selected 300 of them from the three pnncipal tribes, naming them "celeres, Servius Tullius increased the number to 18 centuries, and later there were 1,800 equites. Soon after the first Punic War the equites be came a distinct order in the state and the juries and the fanners of the revenue were selected from their ranks. They held their position in virtue of a certain property qualification, 400,000 sestertii, about $17,000, and toward the end of the republic they possessed much influence in the state. The body of equites was of mixed patrician and plebeian rank, a fact that helped to increase their political power. They. had particular seats assigned to them in the circus and theatre, and the insignia of their rank, in addition to a horse, were a gold ring and a tunic with two narrow purple stripes. At first the equites received two horses from the state, one for the knight and the other for his ser vant, and the wherewithal to maintain them. But, at a later date when the order had become a desirable one to belong to (shortly after 400 B.c.) wealthy citizens began to enter ..it; and
these furnished their own horses and maintained them at their own expense. This was because from the equites the higher officers of the army were selected, only after the candidate for office had passed successively through the equestris cursus honorurn, a definite series of offices, sup posed to fit him for the performance of the duties of the higher post in the arrny or of that of certain magistrate offices to which the equi tes might be appointed. Their privileges were curtailed by Sulla and under the later emperors the order disappeared from the stage of political life.
Bibliography.— Bouche-Leclercq, A., (Man uel des antiquites romaines' ; Bury, J. B., (The Student's Roman Empire' (1893) ; Cagnat, R., (Equites) (in (Dictionnaire des Antiquites' by Daremberg and Saglis) ; Friedlander, A. H., (Sittengeschichte Roins) (1901) ; Greenidge, A. J. H., (History of Rome) (1904) ; Herzog, E. (Geschichte und System der Romischen Staats verfassung) (Leipzig 1891) ; Madvig, J. N., (Die Verfassung des romischen Staates); Mommsen, T., (Hermes) (1881) ; Taylor, T. M., (Political and Constitutional History- of Rome) (1899); Wilkens, A. S., (Equites) (in Smith's (Dictionary of Roman Antiquities) (3d ed. 1891).