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Roman cavalry (Latin: equites Romani) refers to the horse-mounted forces of the Roman army throughout the regal, republican, and imperial eras. In the regal era, the Roman cavalry was a group of 300 soldiers called celeres , tasked with guarding the Kings of Rome .
Roman tradition relates that the Order of Knights was founded by Romulus, who supposedly established a cavalry regiment of 300 men called the Celeres ("Swift Squadron") to act as his personal escort, with each of the three Roman "tribes" (actually voting constituencies) supplying 100 horses.
117–138 AD) that the first regular formations of Roman cataphractarii appear in the record. [8] However, the description by Josephus of heavily armoured, contus-armed Roman cavalry in 67 AD at the siege of Jotapata, during the reign of Vespasian, suggests that cataphracts may have been adopted by the Romans at an considerably earlier date. [9]
The evidence is that cavalry was much the same proportion of overall army numbers as in the 2nd century and that its tactical role and prestige remained similar. However, the cavalry of the Late Roman army was endowed with greater numbers of specialised units, such as extra-heavy shock cavalry (cataphractii and clibanarii) and mounted archers. [3]
The Roman cavalry was posted on the right wing, the allied Italian cavalry held the left. The left wing thus outnumbered the right by three to one, a practice exploited by Hannibal at Cannae, who drew up his best cavalry to face the much smaller Roman cavalry and quickly routed it. The order of battle of a normal consular army could be ...
The celeres (Latin: [ˈkɛɫ̪ɛre:s], Ancient Greek: κελέριοι [1]) were the bodyguard of the kings of Rome and the earliest cavalry unit in the Roman military. [2] [3] [4] Traditionally established by Romulus, the legendary founder and first King of Rome, the celeres comprised three hundred men, [2] [5] ten chosen by each of the curiae.
This cavalry regiment was supposedly doubled in size to 600 men by King Tarquinius Priscus (conventional dates 616-578 BC). [29] That the cavalry was increased to 600 during the regal era is likely, as in the early Republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong (two legions with 300 horses each). [30]
Reconstruction of a Roman cavalryman of the Principate, Nijmegen. With the reorganization of the army under Emperor Augustus (r. 27 BC – 14 AD) and his successors, the turma became the basic sub-unit of the cavalry, the rough equivalent of the infantry centuria, both in the auxiliaries, who formed the bulk of the Roman cavalry, and in the legionary cavalry detachments.