The Roman equestrian order constituted the lower of the two aristocratic classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the Senatorial Order. A member of the order was known as an eques, which in Latin has the general meaning of any person mounted on a horse, but in this context carries the specific meaning of knight. During the Roman Republican era, the equites formed the top social class in Roman society, being those assessed with the highest property. The army of the early Republic was a citizen militia with each man providing his own arms and equipment according to his wealth, so the equites naturally provided the cavalry because they could afford horses. They provided the senior officers and much of the cavalry of the manipular legions until 88 BC, when legionary cavalry was abolished. In the later Republican period, Roman Senators and their offspring became an unofficial elite within the equestrian order. Under the founder of the Roman empire, Augustus, the senatorial elite was constituted as a separate order with superior rank and privileges to the equites

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