Equites
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The equites constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques.
A Roman senior officer (centre) of the time of Polybius, as depicted on a bas-relief from the Altar of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, c. 122 BC. Probably a tribunus militum (joint legionary commander), the officer wears a decorated bronze cuirass, pteruges, mantle, and Attic-style helmet with horsehair plume. The sash around his cuirass probably denoted knightly rank. In the republican army, tribuni were elected by the comitia centuriata (main people's assembly) from the members of the equestrian order.
A Roman coin issued during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) showing (obverse) the god of war Mars and (reverse) probably the earliest image of a Roman cavalryman of the republican era. Helmet with horsehair plume, long spear (hasta), small round shield (parma equestris), and flowing mantle. Roman cavalry was levied from the equites, and from volunteers of the second property class, until the early 1st century BC. Bronze quincunx from Larinum mint.
Picture of an equestrian dressed in his rank toga and tunic, the angusticlavia
Ancient Rome
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In modern historiography, ancient Rome encompasses the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC, the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD.
The Capitoline Wolf, now illustrating the legend that a she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus after their mother's imprisonment in Alba Longa
Etruscan painting of dancer and musicians from the Tomb of the Leopards in Tarquinia
The Capitoline Brutus, a bust traditionally identified as L. Junius Brutus, one of the founders of the Republic
The Roman siege of the Celtiberian stronghold of Numantia in Spain in 133 BC