Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

EPOBELIA. 156 EQUITES.

who required the authorization of the archon
to enable them to act; and lastly, BUeh per-
sons as the archon selected if there were no
next of kin living to undertake the office.
The duties of the guardian comprehended the
education, maintenance, and protection of
the ward, the assertion of his rights, and
the safe custody and profitable disposition
of his inheritance during his minority, he-
sides making a proper provision for the wi-
dow if she remained in the house of her late
husband.

EPOBELIA (en-w/SeAia), as its etymology
implies, at the rate of one obolus for a drach-
ma, or one in six, was payable on the assess-
ment (Ti'/ii/J-a) of several private causes, and
sometimes in a case of phasis, by the litigant
that failed to obtain the votes of one-fifth of
the dicasts.

EPONi'MTJS. [Auction-.]
EPOPTAE (enwrTat). [Eleusiiha.]
EPULONES, who were originally three in
number {triumviri epulones), were first cre-
ated in n. c. 196, to attend to the Epulum
Jovis, and the banquets given in honour of
the other gods ; which duty had originally
belonged to the pontifiees. Their number
was afterwards increased to seven, and they
were called septemviri epulones or septemviri
epulonum. The epulones formed a collegium,
and were one of the four great religious cor-
porations at Pome ; the other three were
those of the Pontifiees, Augurcs, and Quinde-
cemviri.

EPL'LUM JOVIS. [Epulones.]
EQUIRIA, horse-races, which are said
to have been instituted by Romulus in ho-
nour of Mars, and were celebrated in the
Campus Martius. There were two festivals
of this name ; of which one was celebrated
a. r>. III. Cal. Mart., and the other prid. Id.
Mart.

EQUITES, horsemen. Romulus is said to
have formed three centuries of equites; and
taese were the same as the 300 Celeres, whom
he kept about his person in peace and war.
A oentury was taken from each of the three
tribes, the Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres.
Tarquinius Priscus added three more, under
the title of Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres
posteriores. These were the six patrician
centuries of equites, often referred to under
the name of the sex suffragia. To these Ser-
vius Tullius added twelve more centuries, for
admission into which, property and not birth
was the qualification. These twelve cen-
turies might therefore contain plebeians, hut
they do not appear to have been restricted to
plebeians, since we have no reason for be-
lieving that the six old centuries contained
the whole body of patricians. A property

qualification was apparently also necessary
by the Servian constitution for admission into
the six centuries. We may therefore sup-
pose that those patricians who were included
in the six old centuries were allowed by the
Servian constitution (o continue in them, if
they possessed the requisite property; and
that all other persons in the state, whether
patricians or plebeians, who possessed the
requisite property, were admitted into the
twelve new centuries. We are not told the
amount of property necessary to entitle a
person to a place among the equites, but it
was probably the same as in the latter times
of the republic, that is, four times that of
the first class. [Comitia, p. 105.] Property,
however, was not the only qualification; for
in the ancient times of the republic no one
was admitted among the equestrian centuries
unless his character was unblemished, and
his father and grandfather had been born
freemen. Each of the equites received a
horse from the state (eqttus pvblicus), or
money to purchase one, as well as a sum of
money for its annual support ; the expense
of its support was defrayed by the orphans
and unmarried females ; since, in a military
state, it could not be esteemed unjust, that the
women and the children were to contribute
largely for those who fought in behalf of
them and of the commonwealth. The pur-
chase-money for a knight's horse was called
aes equestre, and its annual provision aes
hordearium. The former amounted, accord-
ing to Livy, to 10,000 asses, and the latter
to 2000.—All the equites, of whom we have
been speaking, received a horse from the
state, and were included in the 18 equestrian
centuries of the Servian constitution ; but in
course of time, we read of another class of
equites in Roman history, who did not re-
ceive a horse from the state, and who were
not included in the 18 centuries. This latter
class is first mentioned by Livy, in his ac-
count of the siege of Veii, u. c. 403. He says
that during the siege, when the Romans had
at one time suffered great disasters, all those
citizens who had an equestrian fortune, and
no horse allotted to them, volunteered to
serve with their own horses; and he adds,
that from this time equites first began to
serve with their own horses. The state paid
them, as a kind of compensation for serving
with their own horses. The foot soldiers
had received pay a few years before ; and
two years afterwards, e. c. 401, the pay of
the equites was made three-fold that of the
infantry. From the year b. c. 403, there
were therefore two classes of Roman knights :
one who received horses from the state, and
are therefore frequently called equites equo