CHAP. 8.—PARTICULARS CONNECTED WITH THE EQUESTRIAN ORDER.
At length, however, in the ninth[1] year of the reign of the
Emperor Tiberius, the equestrian order was united in a single
body; and a decree was passed, establishing to whom belonged
the right of wearing the ring, in the consulship of C. Asinius
Pollio and C. Antistius Vetus, the year from the foundation of the
City, 775. It is a matter for surprise, how almost futile, we
may say, was the cause which led to this change. C. Sulpicius
Galba,[2] desirous in his youth to establish his credit with the
Emperor by hunting[3] out grounds for prosecuting[4] the keepers
of victualling-houses, made complaint in the senate that the
proprietors of those places were in the habit of protecting
themselves from the consequences of their guilt by their plea
of wearing the golden ring.[5] For this reason, an ordinance
was made that no person whatsoever should have this right of
wearing the ring, unless, freeborn himself as regarded his
father and paternal grandfather, he should be assessed by the
censors at four hundred thousand sesterces, and entitled, under
the Julian Law,[6] to sit in the fourteen tiers of seats at the
theatre. In later times, however, people began to apply in
whole crowds for this mark of rank; and in consequence of
the diversities of opinion which were occasioned thereby, the
Emperor Caius[7] added a fifth decury to the number. Indeed
to such a pitch has conceit now arisen, that whereas, under the
late Emperor Augustus, the decuries could not be completed,
at the present day they will not suffice to receive all the members
of the equestrian order, and we see in every quarter persons
even who have been but just liberated from slavery, making
a leap all at once to the distinction of the golden ring: a thing
that never used to happen in former days, as it was by the
ring of iron that the equites and the judices were then to be
recognized.
Indeed, so promiscuously was this privilege at last conferred,
that Flavius Proculus, one of the equites, informed against
four hundred persons on this ground, before the Emperor Claudius,
who was then censor:[8] and thus we see, an order, which
was established as a mark of distinction from other private individuals
of free birth, has been shared in common with slaves !
The Gracchi were the first to attach to this order the separate
appellation of "judices," their object being at the same moment
a seditious popularity and the humiliation of the senate. After
the fall of these men, in consequence of the varying results of
seditious movements, the name and influence of the equestrian
order were lost, and became merged in those of the publicani,[9]
who, for some time, were the men that constituted the third
class in the state. At last, however, Marcus Cicero, during
his consulship, and at the period of the Catilinarian troubles,
re-established the equestrian name, it being his vaunt that he
himself had sprung from that order, and he, by certain acts of
popularity peculiar to himself, having conciliated its support.
Since that period, it is very clear that the equites have formed
the third body in the state, and the name of the equestrian order
has been added to the formula—"The Senate and People of
Rome." Hence[10] it is, too, that at the present day even, the
name of this order is written after that of the people, it being
the one that was the last instituted.
1. Tacitus says that this took place the year before, in the consulship of
C. Sulpicius, and D. Haterius. See the Annales, B. iii. c. 86.
2. Brother of the Emperor Galba.
3. "Aucupatus."
4. Suetonius says that Tiberius instructed the ædiles to prohibit stews
and eating-houses: from which we may conclude, Hardouin says, that C.
Sulpicius Galba was an ædile.
5. Or, in other words, belonging to the equestrian order. The Roman
equites often followed the pursuits of bankers, and farmers of the public
revenues.
6. A law passed in the time of Julius Cæsar, B.C. 69, which permitted
Roman equites, in case they or their parents had ever had a Census
equestris, to sit in the fourteen rows fixed by the Lex Roscia Theatralis.
7. Caligula.
8. Conjointly with L. Vitellius.
9. Or farmers of the public revenues; the "publicans" of Scripture. In reality, they were mostly members of the equestrian order, and the
words "equites" and "publicani" are often used as synonymous.
10. "This passage seems to be the addition of some ignorant copyist. It
is indeed a remarkable fact, that we have no inscription in which we see
the Equites named after the people as well as the Senate."—Laboulaye,
Essai sur les lois Criminelles des Romains: Paris, 1845, p. 224.