The Roman Cavalry: From the First to the Third Century AD

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Cllr Paul Hodgkinson, Cotswold District Council Cabinet Member for Leisure, Culture and Health and Emma Stuart, Corinium Museum Director. Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment. They protect, champion and save the places that define who we are and where we've come from as a nation. Historic England care passionately about the stories they tell, the ideas they represent and the people who live, work and play among them. Giving your army missile capability is another facet of the Auxiliary’s flexibility. We have two types of Auxiliary archers available – the Western Archers, dressed in traditional Roman gear above… It seems that from the start the equestrians in the imperial service were organised on a hierarchical basis reflecting their pay-grades. According to Suetonius, writing in the early part of the second century AD, the equestrian procurators who "performed various administrative duties throughout the empire" were from the time of Emperor Claudius I organised into four pay-grades, the trecenarii the ducenarii, the centenarii, and the sexagenarii, receiving 300,000, 200,000, 100,000, and 60,000 sesterces per annum respectively. [68] Cassius Dio, writing a century later, attributed the beginnings of this process to the first emperor, Augustus, himself. [69] Equites cataphractarii, or simply cataphractarii, were the most heavily armoured type of Roman cavalry in the Imperial Roman army and Late Roman army. The term derives from a Greek word, κατάφρακτος kataphraktos, meaning "covered over" or "completely covered" (see Cataphract).

It is widely accepted that the Roman monarchy was overthrown by a patrician coup, probably provoked by the Tarquin dynasty's populist policies in favour of the plebeian class. [Note 2] Alfoldi suggests that the coup was carried out by the celeres themselves. [10] According to the Fraccaro interpretation, when the Roman monarchy was replaced with two annually elected praetores (later called "consuls"), the royal army was divided equally between them for campaigning purposes, which, if true, explains why Polybius later said that a legion's cavalry contingent was 300 strong. [11] There is some debate about the strength of the turma between 30 and 32 men. 30 was the size of a turma in the Republican cavalry and in the cohors equitata of the Principate (early empire) auxilia. Against this is a statement by Arrian that an ala was 512 strong. This would make an ala turma 32 men strong. Personally, I suspect it simply comes down to whether one counts the commander and standard bearer, or just the troopers, in the total. We can also measure the effects of selective breeding during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. The army obviously wanted the tallest and strongest horses for their cavalry. During the start of the Roman Empire, the average height of a horse was 120 cm, towards the end of the Roman Empire horses were as tall as 150 cm in some regions. An increase of 25% over several centuries. The Roman cavalry was certainly not the primary weapon of the Roman army, which heavily relied on its infantry to win battles and wars. However, the cavalry provided several vital services which were essential for expanding Rome's territories.

a b Sabin, Lecturer Department of War Studies Philip; Sabin, Philip; Whitby, Michael Jeffrey; Wees, Hans van; Whitby, Michael (2007-12-06). The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78274-6.

And I know it looks a bit odd but that’s because in Roman times people always used to go to the loo at the same time, together so it wasn’t very private. This article, by Dr Phil Hendry, aims to dispel the myth that the Roman war machine was all about the much-lauded Legionary and that Auxiliary units were bit part players. Over to you, Phil…Nevertheless, Roman and allied cavalry continued to form an essential part of a Roman army's line-up for over a century. They were again, less successful against elusive tribal cavalry, such as the Lusitanians under Viriathus in their bitter resistance to Roman rule (151-140BC) and the Numidians themselves under king Jugurtha during the latter's rebellion (112-105BC), when they were obliged to rely heavily on their own Numidian allied horse [33] [ full citation needed] and the Romans were deprived of their strongest cavalry.