The Public Horse

[cornelius_sulla]

If you were a knight of the senior centuries, who paid for your horse in the late republic and how long was this custom continued? Who paid for your public horse if you were of the junior centuries?

[P.Clodius]

Interesting question. Late Republic, post-Marian reforms. How did the Marian reforms effect the equites? Approximately 120 horse per Marian legion. Anyone?

[Klingan]

I take it that we are discussing the public giving away of a horse to an equite?

 

I have always been under the impression that the giving away was more of a symbolic possibility then it was really used. People who were equites had no problems affording a horse.

[caldrail]

Equites needed a certain amount of cash to achieve their status I believe, much the same way as senators, but that doesn't mean they could all afford a horse. Fortunes rise and fall, and there are mentions of such people who fall on hard times, one reason for volunteering for the arena. Since 120 horses were needed by a marian legion, is it not possible they could pay for them by stoppages in pay much as the rank and file did? I've no idea if they did, its just speculation.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

from what I read there is no clear answer in the ancient texts. The two visions are defended in the modern literature, between those that said the horses where given from state funds to the equites and those who say that the equites paid for them and presented them at census where it was "given" to them along with equites status.

 

Personally I see the existance of mass donkey and horse breeding farms as a proof that at some time and certainly from the second half of the first century BC there were mass state acquisition of horses. Some elements in the biographies of Marius and Sylla make me think the horses might have been given by the state. But I have no firm bases to prove it.

[Pompieus]

Apparently members of the 18 centuries of equites actually received money from the state for purchase and care of the public horse. The censors required each of them to report and account for his animal in the forum; Pompey (Plut Pomp 22) and ex consuls and censors were required to do so (Livy xxix.37 xxxix.44).

 

The article on equites in Smith's dictionary discusses the topic.

Edited March 28, 2008 by Pompieus

[P.Clodius]

Apparently members of the 18 centuries of equites actually received money from the state for purchase and care of the public horse. The censors required each of them to report and account for his animal in the forum; Pompey (Plut Pomp 22) and ex consuls and censors were required to do so (Livy xxix.37 xxxix.44).

 

The article on equites in Smith's dictionary discusses the topic.

Well lets not get confused with the Servian system and the Marian reforms. The Marian legions were semi-professional, so the question still remains, who were the 120 or so men who made up the cavalry arm of each legion and how was their equipment provided?

[Pompieus]

Actually, it was in the Marian period (sometime after 106BCE and before 58BCE) that the citizen cavalry disappeared from the legions. The last time legionary equites are mentioned in the literature is during the war with Jugurtha (Sallust BJ.95), and they were certainly gone by 58BCE as Caesar had to mount infantrymen of the tenth legion to create a mounted escort for his meeting with Ariovistus (Caesar BG II.2).

[P.Clodius]

....58BCE as Caesar had to mount infantrymen of the tenth legion to create a mounted escort for his meeting with Ariovistus (Caesar BG II.2).

He did this not out of necessity but choice.

[caldrail]

Marius removed the contigent of 120 cavalry from standard legionary organisation as part of his rationalisation program, which was re-introduced by Augustus later. Marius had decided it was better to keep cavalry seperate, but the experience of Caesar and Augustus's decision does illustrate that seperate cavalry units aren't necessarily available at any given time, thus the small horse contingent within a standard legion (intended as a self contained 'army') had uses such as reconnaissance and pursuance - exactly what was required.

[M. Porcius Cato]

....58BCE as Caesar had to mount infantrymen of the tenth legion to create a mounted escort for his meeting with Ariovistus (Caesar BG II.2).

He did this not out of necessity but choice.

 

So what other citizen cavalry could he have chosen?

[P.Clodius]

....58BCE as Caesar had to mount infantrymen of the tenth legion to create a mounted escort for his meeting with Ariovistus (Caesar BG II.2).

He did this not out of necessity but choice.

 

So what other citizen cavalry could he have chosen?

Well none apparently. According to Goldsworthy, The legion of the late Republic and early Empire replaced the maniple (120-160 men) with the cohort (of 480 men) as the most important subdivision of the unit. It also did away with the velites and probably the equites.....