A History of the Roman Equestrian Order by Caillan Davenport

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 227 little apparent oversight, but also to charge almost 100 euros for it. The book is a grim warning to graduate students and early-career scholars: only submit to properly peer-reviewed venues, and have your work vetted by as many people as possible prior to publication. Caveant scriptores. University of Toronto Cillian O'Hogan A History of the Roman Equestrian Order. By Caillan Davenport. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2019. Pp. xv, 717. Caillan Davenport has written a significant history of Rome’s ordo equester based on his 2009 Oxford DPhil. Among the most studied of Roman social groups, equestrians feature in a number of earlier works, including many previous monographs.1 This puts into question the present study’s novelty, and the answer lies first of all in its ensemble, as Davenport follows the equestrian order across the entirety of Roman time, from the Iron Age to late antiquity. In so doing, the book implies that this social institution was sufficiently durable to be traced over more than a millennium of history. This remarkable assertion demands close evaluation, as one has trouble thinking of many other Roman (or even non-Roman) social institutions that offer even the potential for such extensive diachronic analysis. Davenport’s introductory chapter states three aims: to follow the group’s development over time, to examine equestrian status on individual and collective levels, and to examine the sociological function of this order. He draws particularly on Max Weber and Michael Mann to assert the importance of shared ideology and values to the construction of group identity.2 Twelve chapters organized into four parts follow, with discussion arranged along both chronological and thematic lines. Part I (“The Republic”) details the equestrians’ progressively formal definition. Chapter One (“Riding for Rome”) locates the order’s roots in the horse-riding warrior aristocracy of Iron Age Latium, who transformed into Rome’s earliest cavalry. Over time these equestrians increasingly provided non-military services to the res publica, especially after allies replaced Roman citizens in the army’s cavalry during the third and second centuries b.c.e. Considering that equestrian virtus long remained central to their identity, one wonders what motivated Romans’ decision to pass off cavalry membership onto Italian allies rather than limiting it to citizen riders. A crucial turn comes in the Gracchan period when equites were legally differentiated from senators and became a distinct group below senatorial elites. Service to the state continued to define them, and Chapter Two (“Cicero’s Equestrian Order”) uses Ciceronian oratory to look at equestrian jury courts, as well as other activities such as their role as publicani. Chapter Three (“Questions of Status”) investigates the consolidation of 1 Principal monographs include C. Nicolet, L’ordre équestre à l’époque républicaine (312–43 av. J.-C.) (2 vols.; Paris 1966–74); S. Demougin, L’ordre équestre sous les Julio-Claudiens (Rome 1988); H.-G. Pflaum, Les procurateurs équestres sous le Haut-Empire romain (Paris 1950); H. Devijver , Prosopographia militiarum equestrium quae fuerunt ab Augusto ad Gallienum (6 vols.; Leuven 1976–2001). The last diachronic study was A. Stein, Der römische Ritterstand (Munich 1927). 2 M. Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkeley 1968); M. Mann, The Sources of Social Power 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760 (Cambridge 1986). 228 PHOENIX equestrian symbols and practices. Equites needed to maintain significant levels of wealth and boasted outwardly of this achievement through distinct forms of dress, or by participating in various social functions. Following the Lex Roscia theatralis of 67 b.c.e., equites were reserved the first fourteen rows of seats during public spectacles. Starting Part II (“The Empire”), Chapter Four (“Pathways to the Principate”) follows Augustus’ creation of further service opportunities for equestrians, either through personal connections to the princeps or in newly created equestrian administrative positions. Chapter Five (“An Imperial Order”) turns to the extension of equestrian status, as with much Roman ideology, into the provinces. Chapters Six and Seven (“Cursus and Vita I and II”) look at imperial cursus inscriptions as evidence of military and administrative careers. These chapters sometimes tread in

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