An order of knights holding a middle place between the senate and the commonalty; members of the Roman equestrian order.
Source: Webster's dictionaryAll three were senators or equites. Source: Internet
By the time of Augustus 's census, Cádiz was home to more than five hundred equites (members of the wealthy upper class), a concentration rivaled only by Patavium ( Padua ) and Rome itself. Source: Internet
Eck (2003), 15. Scullard (1982), 163. The triumvirs then set in motion proscriptions in which 300 senators and 2,000 equites allegedly were branded as outlaws and deprived of their property and, for those who failed to escape, their lives. Source: Internet
Cornell suggests that this centuriate system made the equites, who "consisted mainly, if not exclusively, of patricians" but voted after infantry of the first class, subordinate to the relatively low-status infantry. Source: Internet
By the end of the Republic, this style belonged to a class of persons slightly below the equites in wealth. Source: Internet
Diagram of the levels of seating The tier above the senators, known as the maenianum primum, was occupied by the non-senatorial noble class or knights ( equites ). Source: Internet