Note 5 — INTRODUCTION.

The 'equites' were all those citizens, not senators, who had property to the amount of 400,000 sesterces (£3,200). They were so called from the fact that in earlier times, all who had sufficient property were obliged to serve in the citizen cavalry, but they had long ceased to have any connection with the army. They were now the mercantile class in Rome, having most of the trading operations in their hands, and forming a body intermediate between the aristocracy and the populace.