Note 573 — Chapter IV · THE CENTURIES AND THE CLASSES

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.