roman cavalry question

[cmacq]

This is me vacillating…

I think what I wrote was not that the Roman horse units weren’t good, rather that they were inclined to have smaller horses.

When all’s said you in fact maybe right? I think I’m writing about generalities of large breeding populations, while you’ll writing about the specifics of performance, which may represent a population outside the mainstream?. This is just some overview, which you likely know already. It seems the Latins, of whom the Roman by virtue of their language were a group, entered Italy in the Late Bronze Age with the motley crew of Italics bring with them a breed of the Celtic-horse/pony. God, I can’t remember the name of this archaeological complex, but it was associated with cremation burials and was very similar to that found in Holland, Germany, and northern Poland. Right, I think it’s called the Urnfield Culture, which in time spread throughout much of Western Europe. These Celtic-horses were small and were used to pull two-wheeled carts or crude chariots. This Latin migration was the basis for the land-owning/horse-owning class, we know as the Roman equestrians, or knights.

I’ve read somewhere that for the lower ranking equestrians, the republic period roman horse was about 13 hands, which puts it well within the Pony Class. Also the horses of higher ranking equestrians ranged from 14 to 15 hands. The former measurement being the top of the Pony Class and the latter the bottom of the horse Class, respectively. I believe these conclusions were largely based on depictions found on sculpture and what little textual reference there is. I can’t remember if any equine osteology was involved here?

However, with this said, it doesn’t mean that Roman horse units were not effective, especially within Italy itself. Still, by the 1st century, with Roman imperial-light expansion, it seems that Roman Cavalry was completely outclassed by their Gallic counterparts, whom in turn were vastly inferior to those found in Germany. Although, the development of the Celt saddle was one factor, I think the horse-size as well as strength mattered. But again, there maybe some evidence out there that certain Italian states had from-time-to-time access to good Steppe-type horses? Possibly, large enough to set up a series of small short-termed breeding genus’, within a greater, more general Celtic-horse related Italian equine population? Hope this may have made a little sense?


Still, from everything I've seen the EB design team, possibly coming from a different direction, came to a similar conclusion? As far as the game is concerned, it really doesn't matter how big the horse was, rather how well the horse unit preformed in battle, right? In fact, horse size may be assumed within the light, medium, and heavy horse classes. There’s much here I won't go into. Overall, I suggested, archaeologically, why in general Roman horse units may not perform per say, as well as, German, or Steppe-types. Again, I believe EB v1.0 depicts the relationship between Roman, Gallic, German, and Steppe horse types very well.

Hope this may help?