Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Eques

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

EQUES (ἱππεύς). In a general sense, any one who sits upon a horse, a horseman or rider. (Mart. Ep. xii. 14.) Both the Greeks and Romans rode without stirrups, and either upon the bare back (Varro, ap. Non. p. 108. Mercer), as in the annexed engraving (Eques/1.1), representing an Athenian youth, from the Panathenaic frieze (compare the illustrations s. CELES and DECURSIO, which are Roman); or upon a saddle pad (ephippium), which is mostly covered and concealed by a piece of coloured cloth thrown over it (see the next and subsequent illustrations); but never upon a regular saddle made, like ours, upon a tree or frame, which was a late invention, towards the decline of the Empire. The women rode sideways, like our own, upon a pad, or ephippium, as proved by the expressions muliebriter equitare, or equo insidere (Ammian. xxxi. 2. 6. Compare Achill. Tat. de Amor. Clitoph. et Leucip. Agathias iii.); and the same fashion was sometimes practised by men, as shown by the annexed illustration (Eques/1.2), representing a Pompeian gentleman taking a country ride, from a landscape painting in that city.

2. A knight; i. e. one of a body originally, as is supposed, appointed by Romulus, and consisting of three hundred men selected from the patrician families, who served on horseback, and were mounted at the public expense, to act as a garde du corps for the king. Their numbers, however, were considerably increased at different periods, and a property qualification, instead of birth, made essential for admission into the body, which thus constituted the cavalry branch of the old Roman armies, and formed a separate order in the state, distinguished from the senatorian by the outward badge of the CLAVUS ANGUSTUS, and from the commonalty by a gold ring on the finger. As this class had ceased to serve in a distinct military capacity before the termination of the republic, and the remaining monuments which delineate military scenes are all posterior to that period, we have no genuine representation of a Roman knight of this description, beyond what is afforded by the devices on some of the censorial coins, which are too small and imperfect to give minute or characteristic details. They appear, however, on these coins simply draped in the tunic (tunica), and holding a horse by the bridle before the censor, who sits in his curule chair; which accords so far with the account of Polybius (vi. 25.), who says that the old Roman cavalry had no body armour before their intercourse with the Greeks had taught them to adopt the same accoutrements as the horse soldiers of that country.

3. A cavalry trooper; who did not receive his horse from the state, but possessed sufficient means to mount himself, and so avoid the greater hardship of serving on foot. (Liv. v. 7. Id. xxxiii. 26. Caes., &c.) These troops received pay from the state, and eventually constituted the Roman cavalry, after the regular equestrians had ceased to do military duty. Soldiers of this class are frequently represented on the columns and triumphal arches of the Imperial period, similar to the figure annexed (Eques/3.1), from the Column of Antoninus, in a helmet, and with a cuirass of scale armour, a lance, small round shield, no stirrups, and pad saddle covered with housings.

4. Eques legionarius. A legionary trooper; evidently, as the epithet implies, distinct from the knights and from ordinary cavalry, which was usually stationed on the wings, and very frequently furnished by the allies. The name leads naturally to the conclusion that these men formed a body of heavy-armed cavalry, like the infantry of the legion; and the annexed figure (Eques/4.1) from the Column of Antoninus so far confirms the conjecture, as it shows that in that age at least there was a class of mounted Roman troops who wore cuirasses of exactly the same description as the legionary of the same period, as will be seen by comparing the illustrations s. LEGIONARIUS and LORICA SQUAMATA, with the present figure, the lower portion of which is concealed in the original by the groups before it. Liv. xxxv. 5. Veg. Mil. ii. 2.

5. Eques praetorianus. See PRAETORIANI.

6. Eques sagittarius. A mounted archer; a class of troops mostly composed of foreign auxiliaries; but also equipped by the Macedonians (Quint. Curt. v. 4.), and the Romans (Tac. Ann. ii. 16.), who sometimes armed their own citizens in that manner, at least under the Empire, as shown by the annexed example (Eques/6.1), which represents a Roman soldiers on the Column of Antoninus.

7. Eques cataphractus. See CATAPHRACTUS.

8. Eques alarius. The allied cavalry which accompanied the Roman legions, so termed because they were always stationed upon the wings. Liv. xl. 40. Caes. B. G. i. 51.

9. Eques extraordinarius. A trooper selected from the allied cavalry, and formed into a picked body for the service of the consuls. Liv. xl. 31. and 27. Id. xxxiv. 37.

10. A mounted gladiator, who fought like a cavalry soldier, on horseback (Inscript. ap. Orelli, 2569. 2577.); two of whom are shown in the annexed engraving (Eques/10.1), from a bas-relief on the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche at Pompeii. It will be perceived that their armour assimilates closely with the figure of the legionary trooper, No. 4.

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  Eques/1.1
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  Eques/1.2
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  Eques/3.1
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  Eques/4.1
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  Eques/6.1
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  Eques/10.1