KNIGHT (eques), among the Romans, a person of the second degree of nobility, following immediately that of the senators.
Part of the ceremony whereby this honour was conferred, was the giving of an horse; for each had an horse at the public charge, and received the stipend of a horseman to serve in the wars.
When the knights were taken in among the senators, they resigned the privilege of having an horse kept for them at the charge of the public: then it became necessary, in order to be a knight, that they should have a certain revenue, that their poverty might not disgrace the order; and when they failed of the prescribed revenue, they were expunged out of the list of knights, and thrust down among the Plebeians. Ten thousand crowns is computed to have been the revenue required.
The knights at length grow so very powerful, that they became a balance between the power of the senate and people: they neglected the exercises of war, and betook themselves principally to civil employments in Rome.