Equites in the context of "Publius Vitellius the Younger"

Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (Latin: Octavianus), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult and an era of imperial peace (the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta) in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The Principate system of government was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.

Octavian was born into an equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia. Following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, Octavian was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir, and inherited Caesar's name, estate, and the loyalty of his legions. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar. Following their victory at the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as de facto oligarchs. The Triumvirate was eventually torn apart by the competing ambitions of its members; Lepidus was exiled in 36 BC, and Antony was defeated by Octavian's naval commander Marcus Agrippa at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Antony and his wife Cleopatra, the Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, killed themselves during Octavian's invasion of Egypt, which then became a Roman province.

Sulla's proscription was a reprisal campaign by the Roman proconsul and later dictator, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, to eliminate his enemies in the aftermath of his victory in the civil war of 83–82 BC.

Following his victory at the battle of the Colline Gate, Sulla wanted to take his revenge against the former supporters of Marius and Cinna, who had declared him a public enemy in 87 BC. After having obtained a positive vote from a popular assembly, he published two lists with the names of his enemies among senators and equites, the two tiers of the Roman aristocracy. The lists contained 520 names, of which 75 are known. Those on the lists had their lives and property forfeit; rewards were given to those who assassinated the victims. Several henchmen, as well prominent politicians who supported Sulla, massively profited from the proscription, collecting bounties and receiving seized properties at concessionary prices.

Roman cavalry (Latin: equites Romani) refers to the horse-mounted forces of the Roman army throughout the regal, republican, and imperial eras.

In the regal era, the Roman cavalry was a group of 300 soldiers called celeres, tasked with guarding the Kings of Rome. Later their numbers were doubled to 600, then possibly 1,800. All of the cavalrymen were patricians. In the republican era, the general name for the cavalry was equites and these united consisted of the equestrian class and the first class, with a group of 300 cavalrymen in every legion. They were divided into 10 groups of 30 men. Each group elected three leaders known as decuriones. Later the Roman cavalry stopped using Roman citizens as cavalrymen and relied on Auxilia and foreign recruits.

Hippeis (Ancient Greek: ἱππεῖς, singular ἱππεύς, hippeus) is a Greek term for cavalry. In ancient Athenian society, after the political reforms of Solon, the hippeus was the second highest of the four social classes. It was composed of men who had at least 300 medimnoi or their equivalent as yearly income. According to the Timocratic Constitution, the average citizen had a yearly income of less than 200 medimnoi. This gave the men who made 300 medimnoi the ability to purchase and maintain a war horse during their service to the state.

Its counterparts were the Roman equites (equestrians) and medieval knights.

The gens Vipsania or Vipsana was an obscure plebeian family of equestrian rank at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens appear in history, although a number are known from inscriptions. By far the most illustrious of the family was Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a close friend and adviser of Augustus, whom the emperor intended to make his heir. After Agrippa died, Augustus adopted his friend's sons, each of whom was considered a possible heir to the Empire, but when each of them died or proved unsuitable, Augustus chose another heir, the future emperor Tiberius.

A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity.

The concept of knighthood may have been inspired by the ancient Greek hippeis (ἱππεῖς) and Roman equites. In the Early Middle Ages in Western Christian Europe, knighthood was conferred upon mounted warriors. During the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of petty nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior. Often, a knight was a vassal who served as an elite fighter or a bodyguard for a lord, with payment in the form of land holdings. The lords trusted the knights, who were skilled in battle on horseback. In the Middle Ages, knighthood was closely linked with horsemanship (and especially the joust) from its origins in the 12th century until its final flowering as a fashion among the high nobility in the Duchy of Burgundy in the 15th century. This linkage is reflected in the etymology of chivalry, cavalier, and related terms such as the French title of chevalier. In that sense, the special prestige accorded to mounted warriors in Christendom finds a parallel in the furusiyya in the Islamic world. The Crusades brought various military orders of knights to the forefront of defending Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land.