ĔQUĪRĬA, horse-races, which are said to have been instituted by
Romulus in honour of Mars, and were celebrated in the Campus Martius.
There were two festivals of this name; of which one was celebrated
A.D. III. Cal. Mart., and the other prid. Id. Mart.
ĔQUĬTES, horsemen. Romulus is said to have formed three centuries
of equites; and these were the same as the 300 Celeres, whom he
kept about his person in peace and war. A century was taken from
each of the three tribes, the _Ramnes_, _Titienses_, and _Luceres_.
Tarquinius Priscus added three more, under the title of Ramnes,
Titienses, and Luceres _posteriores_. These were the six patrician
centuries of equites, often referred to under the name of the _sex
suffragia_. To these Servius Tullius added twelve more centuries, for
admission into which, property and not birth was the qualification.
These twelve centuries might therefore contain plebeians, but they
do not appear to have been restricted to plebeians, since we have
no reason for believing that the six old centuries contained the
_whole_ body of patricians. A property qualification was apparently
also necessary by the Servian constitution for admission into the
six centuries. We may therefore suppose that those patricians who
were included in the six old centuries were allowed by the Servian
constitution to continue in them, if they possessed the requisite
property; and that all other persons in the state, whether patricians
or plebeians, who possessed the requisite property, were admitted
into the twelve new centuries. We are not told the amount of property
necessary to entitle a person to a place among the equites, but it
was probably the same as in the latter times of the republic, that
is, four times that of the first class. [COMITIA, p. 105.] Property,
however, was not the only qualification; for in the ancient times
of the republic no one was admitted among the equestrian centuries
unless his character was unblemished, and his father and grandfather
had been born freemen. Each of the equites received a horse from
the state (_equus publicus_), or money to purchase one, as well as
a sum of money for its annual support; the expense of its support
was defrayed by the orphans and unmarried females; since, in a
military state, it could not be esteemed unjust, that the women and
the children were to contribute largely for those who fought in
behalf of them and of the commonwealth. The purchase-money for a
knight’s horse was called _aes equestre_, and its annual provision
_aes hordearium_. The former amounted, according to Livy, to 10,000
asses, and the latter to 2000.--All the equites, of whom we have
been speaking, received a horse from the state, and were included
in the 18 equestrian centuries of the Servian constitution; but
in course of time, we read of another class of equites in Roman
history, who did not receive a horse from the state, and who were not
included in the 18 centuries. This latter class is first mentioned
by Livy, in his account of the siege of Veii, B.C. 403. He says that
during the siege, when the Romans had at one time suffered great
disasters, all those citizens who had an equestrian fortune, and no
horse allotted to them, volunteered to serve with their own horses;
and he adds, that from this time equites first began to serve with
their own horses. The state paid them, as a kind of compensation for
serving with their own horses. The foot soldiers had received pay
a few years before; and two years afterwards, B.C. 401, the pay of
the equites was made three-fold that of the infantry. From the year
B.C. 403, there were therefore two classes of Roman knights: one who
received horses from the state, and are therefore frequently called
_equites equo publico_, and sometimes _Flexumines_ or _Trossuli_,
and another class, who served, when they were required, with their
own horses, but were not classed among the 18 centuries. As they
served on horseback they were called _equites_; and when spoken of in
opposition to cavalry, which did not consist of Roman citizens, they
were also called _equites Romani_; but they had no legal claim to
the name of equites, since in ancient times this title was strictly
confined to those who received horses from the state.--The reason of
this distinction of two classes arose from the fact, that the number
of equites in the 18 centuries was fixed from the time of Servius
Tullius. As vacancies occurred in them, the descendants of those
who were originally enrolled succeeded to their places, provided
they had not dissipated their property. But in course of time, as
population and wealth increased, the number of persons who possessed
an equestrian fortune, also increased greatly; and as the ancestors
of these persons had not been enrolled in the 18 centuries, they
could not receive horses from the state, and were therefore allowed
the privilege of serving with their own horses among the cavalry,
instead of the infantry, as they would otherwise have been obliged to
have done.--The inspection of the equites who received horses from
the state belonged to the censors, who had the power of depriving an
eques of his horse, and reducing him to the condition of an aerarian,
and also of giving the vacant horse to the most distinguished of the
equites who had previously served at their own expense. For these
purposes they made during their censorship a public inspection, in
the forum, of all the knights who possessed public horses (_equitatum
recognoscere_). The tribes were taken in order, and each knight was
summoned by name. Every one, as his name was called, walked past
the censors, leading his horse. If the censors had no fault to find
either with the character of the knight or the equipments of his
horse, they ordered him to pass on (_traducere equum_); but if on
the contrary they considered him unworthy of his rank, they struck
him out of the list of knights, and deprived him of his horse, or
ordered him to sell it, with the intention no doubt that the person
thus degraded should refund to the state the money which had been
advanced to him for its purchase.--This review of the equites by
the censors must not be confounded with the _Equitum Transvectio_,
which was a solemn procession of the body every year on the Ides of
Quintilis (July). The procession started from the temple of Mars
outside the city, and passed through the city over the forum, and by
the temple of the Dioscuri. On this occasion the equites were always
crowned with olive chaplets, and wore their state dress, the trabea,
with all the honourable distinctions which they had gained in battle.
According to Livy, this annual procession was first established by
the censors Q. Fabius and P. Decius, B.C. 304; but according to
Dionysius it was instituted after the defeat of the Latins near
the lake Regillus, of which an account was brought to Rome by the
Dioscuri.--It may be asked how long did the knight retain his public
horse, and a vote in the equestrian century to which he belonged? On
this subject we have no positive information; but as those equites,
who served with their own horses, were only obliged to serve for ten
years (_stipendia_) under the age of 46, we may presume that the same
rule extended to those who served with the public horses, provided
they _wished_ to give up the service. For it is certain that in the
ancient times of the republic a knight might retain his horse as
long as he pleased, even after he had entered the senate, provided
he continued able to discharge the duties of a knight. Thus the two
censors, M. Livius Salinator and C. Claudius Nero, in B.C. 204, were
also equites, and L. Scipio Asiaticus, who was deprived of his horse
by the censors in B.C. 185, had himself been censor in B.C. 191.
But during the later times of the republic the knights were obliged
to give up their horses on entering the senate, and consequently
ceased to belong to the equestrian centuries. It thus naturally
came to pass, that the greater number of the equites equo publico,
after the exclusion of senators from the equestrian centuries, were
young men.--The equestrian centuries, of which we have hitherto been
treating, were only regarded as a division of the army: they did not
form a distinct class or ordo in the constitution. The community,
in a political point of view, was divided only into patricians and
plebeians, and the equestrian centuries were composed of both. But
in the year B.C. 123, a new class, called the _Ordo Equestris_, was
formed in the state by the Lex Sempronia, which was introduced by C.
Gracchus. By this law, or one passed a few years afterwards, every
person who was to be chosen judex was required to be above 30 and
under 60 years of age, to have either an equus publicus, or to be
qualified by his fortune to possess one, and _not_ to be a senator.
The number of judices, who were required yearly, was chosen from
this class by the praetor urbanus. As the name of equites had been
originally extended from those who possessed the public horses to
those who served with their own horses, it now came to be applied
to all those persons who were qualified by their fortune to act as
judices, in which sense the word is usually used by Cicero. After
the reform of Sulla, which entirely deprived the equestrian order
of the right of being chosen as judices, and the passing of the Lex
Aurelia (B.C. 70), which ordained that the judices should be chosen
from the senators, equites, and tribuni aerarii, the influence of
the order, says Pliny, was still maintained by the _publicani_,
or farmers of the public taxes. We find that the publicani were
almost always called equites, not because any particular rank was
necessary in order to obtain from the state the farming of the
taxes, but because the state was not accustomed to let them to any
one who did not possess a considerable fortune. Thus the publicani
are frequently spoken of by Cicero as identical with the equestrian
order. The consulship of Cicero, and the active part which the
knights then took in suppressing the conspiracy of Catiline, tended
still further to increase the power and influence of the equestrian
order; and “from that time,” says Pliny, “it became a third body
(_corpus_) in the state, and, to the title of _Senatus Populusque
Romanus_, there began to be added _Et Equestris Ordo_.” In B.C. 63,
a distinction was conferred upon them, which tended to separate them
still further from the plebs. By the Lex Roscia Othonis, passed
in that year, the first fourteen seats in the theatre behind the
orchestra were given to the equites. They also possessed the right
of wearing the Clavus Angustus [CLAVUS], and subsequently obtained
the privilege of wearing a gold ring, which was originally confined
to the equites equo publico. The number of equites increased greatly
under the early emperors, and all persons were admitted into the
order, provided they possessed the requisite property, without any
inquiry into their character, or into the free birth of their father
and grandfather. The order in consequence gradually began to lose all
the consideration which it had acquired during the later times of the
republic.--Augustus formed a select class of equites, consisting of
those equites who possessed the property of a senator, and the old
requirement of free birth up to the grandfather. He permitted this
class to wear the _latus clavus_; and also allowed the tribunes of
the plebs to be chosen from them, as well as the senators, and gave
them the option, at the termination of their office, to remain in the
senate or return to the equestrian order. This class of knights was
distinguished by the special title _illustres_ (sometimes _insignes_
and _splendidi_) _equites Romani_. The formation of this distinct
class tended to lower the others still more in public estimation.
In the ninth year of the reign of Tiberius, an attempt was made
to improve the order by requiring the old qualifications of free
birth up to the grandfather, and by strictly forbidding any one to
wear the gold ring unless he possessed this qualification. This
regulation, however, was of little avail, as the emperors frequently
admitted freedmen into the equestrian order. When private persons
were no longer appointed judices, the necessity for a distinct class
in the community, like the equestrian order, ceased entirely; and
the gold ring came at length to be worn by all free citizens. Even
slaves, after their manumission, were allowed to wear it by special
permission from the emperor, which appears to have been usually
granted provided the patronus consented.--Having thus traced the
history of the equestrian order to its final extinction as a distinct
class in the community, we must now return to the equites equo
publico, who formed the 18 equestrian centuries. This class still
existed during the latter years of the republic, but had entirely
ceased to serve as horse-soldiers in the army. The cavalry of the
Roman legions no longer consisted, as in the time of Polybius, of
Roman equites, but their place was supplied by the cavalry of the
allied states. It is evident that Caesar in his Gallic wars possessed
no Roman cavalry. When he went to an interview with Ariovistus,
and was obliged to take cavalry with him, we are told that he did
not dare to trust his safety to the Gallic cavalry, and therefore
mounted his legionary soldiers upon their horses. The Roman equites
are, however, frequently mentioned in the Gallic and civil wars,
but never as common soldiers; they were officers attached to the
staff of the general, or commanded the cavalry of the allies, or
sometimes the legions.--After the year B.C. 50, there were no censors
in the state, and it would therefore follow that for some years
no review of the body took place, and that the vacancies were not
filled up. When Augustus, however, took upon himself, in B.C. 29,
the praefectura morum, he frequently reviewed the troops of equites,
and restored the long neglected custom of the solemn procession
(_transvectio_). From this time these equites formed an honourable
corps, from which all the higher officers in the army and the chief
magistrates in the state were chosen. Admission into this body was
equivalent to an introduction into public life, and was therefore
esteemed a great privilege. If a young man was not admitted into
this body, he was excluded from all civil offices of any importance,
except in municipal towns; and also from all rank in the army,
with the exception of centurion. All those equites, who were not
employed in actual service, were obliged to reside at Rome, where
they were allowed to fill the lower magistracies, which entitled
a person to admission into the senate. They were divided into six
turmae, each of which was commanded by an officer, who is frequently
mentioned in inscriptions as _Sevir equitum Rom. turmae_ I. II., &c.,
or commonly _Sevir turmae_ or _Sevir turmarum equitum Romanorum_.
From the time that the equites bestowed the title of _principes
juventutis_ upon Caius and Lucius Caesar, the grandsons of Augustus,
it became the custom to confer this title, as well as that of sevir,
upon the probable successor to the throne, when he first entered
into public life, and was presented with an equus publicus. The
practice of filling all the higher offices in the state from these
equites appears to have continued as long as Rome was the centre of
the government and the residence of the emperor. After the time of
Diocletian, the equites became only a city guard, under the command
of the praefectus vigilum; but they still retained, in the time of
Valentinianus and Valens, A.D. 364, the second rank in the city, and
were not subject to corporal punishment. Respecting the _Magister
Equitum_, see DICTATOR.
ĔQUŬLĔUS or ĔCŬLĔUS, an instrument of torture, which is supposed to
have been so called because it was in the form of a horse.
ĔRĂNI (ἔρανοι), were clubs or societies, established for charitable,
convivial, commercial, or political purposes. Unions of this kind
were called by the general name of ἑταιρίαι, and were often converted
to mischievous ends, such as bribery, overawing the public assembly,
or influencing courts of justice. In the days of the Roman empire
friendly societies, under the name of _erani_, were frequent among
the Greek cities, but were looked on with suspicion by the emperors,
as leading to political combinations. The _gilds_, or fraternities
for mutual aid, among the ancient Saxons, resembled the _erani_ of
the Greeks.
ERGASTŬLUM, a private prison attached to most Roman farms, where
the slaves were made to work in chains. The slaves confined in an
ergastulum were also employed to cultivate the fields in chains.
Slaves who had displeased their masters were punished by imprisonment
in the ergastulum; and in the same place all slaves, who could not be
depended upon or were barbarous in their habits, were regularly kept.
ĒRĪCĬUS, a military engine full of sharp spikes, which was placed by
the gate of the camp to prevent the approach of the enemy.
ĔRŌTĬA or ĔRŌTĬDĬA (ἐρώτια or ἐρωτίδια), the most solemn of all the
festivals celebrated in the Boeotian town of Thespiae. It took place
every fifth year, and in honour of Eros, the principal divinity of
the Thespians. Respecting the particulars nothing is known, except
that it was solemnised with contests in music and gymnastics.