Cavalry

Fighting on Horseback

Not every Roman soldier marched to battle on foot. The army also had cavalry — men who fought and traveled mounted.

Cavalry gave an army the one thing infantry couldn’t: speed. A rider could scout ahead, carry news, run down a fleeing enemy, or get to a trouble spot before it got worse.

Who Were the Cavalry?

In the first century, most of Rome’s cavalry came from auxiliary units raised across the empire. Some units were all mounted; others mixed horsemen and infantry together. Rome also leaned on local allies whose riding skills fit the country they served in — especially in the eastern provinces, where mounted troops had a long history.

A carved stone relief of a Roman cavalryman on a rearing horse, cloak streaming, thrusting a spear downward. — The tombstone of an auxiliary cavalryman, first century AD, from Cologne on the Rhine frontier. He rides at speed with a couched spear and flying cloak — the standard image on a Roman cavalry grave marker. Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Köln. Photo: MrArifnajafov (cropped) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

What Did They Carry?

A cavalryman’s gear was built for the saddle. His main weapon was usually a spear or lance, backed by a sword — often longer than the infantry gladius, since a rider had room to swing and needed the extra reach.

His shield was usually oval or some other shape easy to handle on a horse, not the big curved scutum of the foot soldier.

Roman riders had saddles but no stirrups. The saddle was carefully shaped, with four raised horns that gripped the rider’s hips and held him on.

More Than Fighting

Horses earned their keep even when nobody was fighting.

Commanders needed information and had to move orders between forts, units, and officials. A mounted soldier could carry a message far faster than a man on foot, and cavalry also patrolled roads, scouted the countryside, and escorted travelers.

That’s the job our cavalrymen usually play at Bethlehem Revisited: Roman military messengers.

They’re a reminder that the Roman army ran on communication as much as weapons. An army spread across a whole province needed a way to stay connected — and long before radios or telephones, that often came down to a soldier and a good horse.