The Order Equester
The term equites has been known since the foundation of the City, 753 B.C. One of the many tasks of the divine Romulus, the founder, was to create an army for the defense of the City. A contingent of this army was the cavalry, or equites, and it consisted of 3 Centuriae; each centuria was made up of 100 equites. Thus, the first Roman cavalry consisted of 300 knights. Each centuria was named after the name of the three tribes from which they were conscripted: the Ramnes, the Tities and the Luceres. The Ramnenses1 were a Latin settlement on the Palatine Hill, see the red circle on the adjacent map of ancient Rome. The Titienses were settlers from the nearby Sabine region, on the north-east of Rome, who settled on the Quirinal and Viminal Hills, see the blue ellipse on the map. Finally, the Lucerenses were Etruscans who had settled on the Caelian Hill, highlighted by the green circle on the map.
Under Tullus Hostilius, Rex, the number of equites was doubled to 200 per centuria, thus making a total of 600 equites still distributed in 3 centuriae. Later, under Tarquinius Priscus, the first of the two Tarquinii, the number of centuriae was doubled; six centuriae of 200 equities each for a total of 1200 equites composed exclusively of Patricians.
With the constitutional changes introduced by Servius Tullius, twelve new centuriae, each of 200 equites, selected without reference to their social status, viz. they could have been either Patricians or Plebeians provided, however, that they were men of wealth, were introduced; in all there were now a total of 18 centuries, making up 3600 equities in all. The reform also introduced the grouping of citizens into classes, as explained in the page:
Comitiae.
In the course of time they abandoned their military role and became men of fortune by effectively running most of the business and industrial activities of the time. Their prosperity rose in line with that of the City, and increasingly they were de-facto in control over the socio-economic sphere of the Republic. They also came to be recognised as a body of "capitalist" men, quite distinct from the Optimates, the nobility, and played a major influence in strategic decisions of the Senate as Rome expanded to become the dominant power of Europe and the Middle East. Their position of leaders of the industry and commerce came to be indirectly sanctioned in 122 B.C., when C. Gracchus carried the Lex Sempronia Iudiciaria, which gave this body of equites the right of acting as jurors in criminal trials; a role that had only been performed, previously and exclusively, by the senatores. This official elevation brought about their recognition as an order, the Ordo Equester, quite distinct from that of the Ordo Senatorius.
The principle activity of the knights of the order equester was to engage in business organizations of all types though the formation of trading companies called
societates; the same name is used today to refer to private or public companies in those European countries, or Central and Southern America, where the Romance languages are spoken. Please refer to the page:
Joint Stock Companies.