Roman cavalry

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Often appears with: battle and tactics · supply, logistics, and encampment · reconnaissance skirmish · publius · numidian cavalry · naval warfare and sea power · military discipline and training · etruscan retreat · ciminian forest · battle near sutrium · arms, armor, and machines

Usually: narrative (2) · detachment (1)

Quotable

“They received no further instructions at their departure, than a summary description of the country through which they were to pass; to this was added the names of the principal men in the several states, to prevent their being at a loss in conversation, and from being discovered by making some mistake.” Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Books 09 to 26 · observation

The History of Rome, Books 09 to 26 secondary

Titus Livius (Livy) · c. 27 BCE–17 CE (for Ab urbe condita; individual books composed within this span)
BOOK IX. > part, more determined, however, retaining their arms, rushed out by the opposite gate, and their boldness brought greater safety to them, than their fear, which inclined them to credulity, did to the others: for the Samnites, having surrounded the latter with fires, burned them all to death, while they made vain appeals to the faith of gods and men. The consuls having settled the province between them, Papirius proceeded into Apulia to Luceria where the Roman horsemen, given as hostages at Caudium were kept in custody: Publilius remained in (22/32)

Fabius marches to relieve Sutrium, fights Etruscans in rugged stone-covered terrain by shifting toward hills, then forces them into flight through the Ciminian forest, taking standards and spoils.

of the Etrurians, and taken thirty-eight military standards, took also possession of their camp, together with a vast quantity of spoil. They then began to consider of pursuing the enemy. 36. The Ciminian forest was in those days deemed as impassable and frightful as the German forests have been in latter times; not even any trader having ever attempted to pass it. Hardly any, besides the general himself, showed bol…

The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) primary

Polybius · c. 160–118 BCE (composition of the Histories; later books/fragments extend beyond this span)
BOOK I > BOOK III (30/82)

Numidian reconnoitrers flee after a skirmish with Roman cavalry led by Publius; Hannibal positions cavalry by the sea, detaches preparations for crossing, and keeps elephants and remaining men behind.

[Sidenote: The passage of the elephants.] +46.+ The mode of getting the elephants across was as follows. They made a number of rafts strongly compacted, which they lashed firmly two and two together, so as to form combined a breadth of about fifty feet, and brought them close under the bank at the place of crossing. To the outer edge of these they lashed some others and made them join exactly; so that the whole raft…