Читать книгу Roman Public Life онлайн

96 страница из 145

To these were added twelve new centuries (centuriae equitum), composed, like the classes, of Patricians and Plebeians. But, unlike the classes, they were not enrolled on a property qualification. This is explained by the fact that they are not a list of men qualified for service but actually in service, a standing corps selected by the king and whose expenses were largely defrayed by the state. In later times, each knight was on his entrance into the corps given the means wherewith to furnish himself with a pair of horses[301] (aes equestre), and also a regular sum of money for their support (aes hordearium), the latter money being defrayed by unmarried women and orphans, who were possessed of property but could not by the nature of the case be rated in the census.[302]

Each of these centuries formed a troop of one hundred men under a centurio,[303] and these eighteen centuries of Roman knights with public horses (equites Romani equo publico) continued unaltered in numbers and (with the exception that the sex suffragia ceased to be chosen from the Patricians) in character to the end of the Republic. Although no definite census was required for the class, it was probably chosen from the first from the richest and most distinguished citizens; for its permanent existence implies leisure. The class was not divided by age into seniores and juniores, for an obvious military reason. They were all juniores, and probably young men, whose release from the centuries was granted as soon as age had impaired their efficiency for service.