[566] Two legions of juniors was the maximal limit of Rome’s military strength during the period of twenty-one tribes; cf. p. 77, 84. The incorporation of the Veientan territory, 387, could not at once have doubled this force.
[567] Livy xxv. 3. 1-7; cf. Gerathewohl, Die Reiter und die Rittercent. 54. The sources do not suggest that the number after reaching eighteen hundred remained unalterable. In Cic. Rep. ii. 20. 36 (“Deinde equitum ad hunc morem constituit, qui usque adhuc est retentus”) reference is not to number but to character; Gerathewohl, ibid. 8 f. Mommsen’s interpretation (Röm. Staatsr. iii. 259, n. 5) is therefore wrong.
[568] In 200 the seven legions contained twenty-one hundred equites or fewer; Gerathewohl, Die Reiter und die Rittercent. 56.
[569] Orat. lxiv: “Nunc ego arbitror oportere restitui (Mommsen’s emendation ‘institui’ is unnecessary), quin minus duobus milibus ac ducentis sit aerum equestrium.” Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 259, wrongly holds the opinion that the measure failed to pass.
[570] See citations collected by Gerathewohl, ibid. 56, n. 1.
[571] Dion. Hal. vi. 13. 4: Ἔστιν ὅτε shows that the number varied; cf. Madvig, Röm. Staat. i. 171.
[572] Suet. Aug. 38.
[573] Cic. Rep. ii. 22. 39; Livy i. 43. 8 f.; Dion. Hal. iv. 18. 1. High birth and great wealth are emphasized, but no definite rating of the class is given. Their treatment of the subject is compatible with the view that the knights were then patrician—a view however which these writers did not have clearly in mind. Livy’s statement (iii. 27. 1) that a certain patrician served in the infantry because of his poverty harmonizes well with the same view; for as the aes equestre and hordearium were not yet introduced, a poor patrician would be unable to own and keep a horse. Those scholars therefore seem to be wrong who, like Grathewohl, ibid. 67, following Rubino, in Zeitschr. f. d. Altertumswiss. iv (1846). 219, refer the equestrian census to Servius Tullius.
[574] P. 94. It is for about this time (403) that Livy, v. 7. 5, first refers definitely to an equestrian census.
[575] This fact is most clearly stated by Dion. Hal. vii. 59. 3, and is confirmed by Cic. Rep. ii. 22. 39.; cf. Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 3. 43; for further evidence, see Belot, Rev. écon. et mon. 5 ff.