Roman cavalry

In the regal era, the Roman cavalry was a group of 300 soldiers called celeres, tasked with guarding the Kings of Rome.This cavalry regiment was supposedly doubled in size to 600 men by King Tarquinius Priscus (conventional dates 616–578 BC).140s BC) are the earliest substantial extant account of the Republic, Roman cavalry was originally unarmoured, wearing only a tunic and armed with a light spear and ox-hide shield which were of low quality and quickly deteriorated in action.[10] As hoplite warfare was the standard early in this era, cavalry might have not played a substantial role in battle except for chasing after routed enemies.[2] It appears that equites equo privato (i.e., First Class members) were required to pay for their own equipment and horse, but that the latter would be refunded by the state if it was killed in action.[18][full citation needed] The majority of pictorial evidence for the equipment of Republican cavalry is from stone monuments, such as mausoleums, columns, arches and Roman military tombstones.The earliest extant representations of Roman cavalrymen are found on a few coins dated to the era of the Second Punic War (218–201 BC).[20][full citation needed] However, a coin of 136 BC and the Lacus Curtius bas-relief of the same period show horsemen in composite bronze cuirasses.Before the invention of full plate armour in the High Middle Ages, all combatants would carry shields as a vital piece of equipment.Pictorial evidence, such as the stele of Titus Flavius Bassus (eques of the ala Noricum) or Tomb monument of a cavalryman from 1st century AD (Romano-Germanic Museum, Cologne Germany) supports literary accounts that equites carried swords, such as the spatha, which was much longer than gladii hispanienses (Spanish swords) used by the infantry[24][full citation needed].There is no evidence that equites carried bows and arrows and the Romans probably had no mounted archers before they came into contact with Parthian forces after 100 BC.Examples include the Heraclea (280 BC), in where the Roman cavalry dismayed the enemy leader Pyrrhus by gaining the advantage in a bitterly contested melee against his Thessalian cavalry, then regarded as some of the finest in the Western world, and were only driven back when Pyrrhus deployed his elephants, which panicked the Roman horses.At the Clastidium the Roman cavalry were even able to triumph unaided against superior numbers of Gallic foot soldiers and horsemen, showing their ability when properly led.Nevertheless, on those occasions during the Second Punic War when they were deployed properly, led competently, and/or had the advantage of numbers or surprise, such as during the skirmish before Ilipa[28] and at the pitched battles of the Great Plains and Zama, the Roman cavalry were able to best their Carthaginian counterparts, independent of the success of their own allied Numidians.[30][full citation needed] This would have required the knights to provide 220 senior officers (120 tribuni militum, 60 decuriones and 60 praefecti sociorum).They were again, less successful against elusive tribal cavalry, such as the Lusitanians under Viriathus in their bitter resistance to Roman rule (151-140 BC) and the Numidians themselves under king Jugurtha during the latter's rebellion (112-105 BC), 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.By the end of the 1st century BC citizen cavalry disappeared completely from the Roman army and was replaced by foreign auxiliaries.The question arises as to why the Romans allowed their citizen cavalry to lapse in this way, given its record as a highly effective and useful force.The equites had long since become exclusively an officer class (a role they retained throughout the Principate), as the empire had become simply too large and complex for aristocrats to serve as ordinary troopers.When the Republic transitioned into the Empire, Augustus restored to each Roman legion a small citizen cavalry force (recruited from the legionaries themselves) of 120 men.These professional Roman soldiers, like the Legions, were subjects recruited from the non-citizens in provinces controlled by Rome that had strong native cavalry traditions.Roman Auxilia cavalry were usually heavily armored in mail and armed with a short lance, javelins, spatha long swords and sometimes bows for specialist horse archer units.Gallic auxiliaries would form border patrol and escort units called the cohortes equitatae and the equites alares would serve in the army, using throwing spears as a major weapon.