Are they're listening,

listeners,

an erstwhile plucky young companion to this podcast

is now fundraising for the fourth series.

This podcast looks at buildings and sites in the Roman Empire and among sites like the

Coliseum, tombs, triumful arches are just spent a long stretch looking at the site of Pompeii.

Now unlike the emperors of Rome, when in Rome is assembled in the loving care of my home studio at night, and it relies on public support.

So if you'd like to help out and hear more of this podcast, go to kickstarter and search for when in Rome, and I'll also be putting links on social media.

It's currently raised about half its funding and it could use any support you'd like to give.

And with that in mind, here's emperors of Rome. Ahh, and welcome to emperors of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latroba University. I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is

Dr. Kalin Davenport, senior lecturer in Roman History at Macquarie University.

This is episode CXI, the equestrian order. The equite belonged to a class of Roman

citizen dating back to the time of the kingdom of Rome. Ranking below the

senatorial class they grew in power and influence, occupying key

positions in the government and military.

I should at this point mention a rather excellent new book a history of the Roman

equestrian order published by Cambridge University Press. Here's the author

Caitlin Davenport. There could only be a fixed number of members of the Senate, which was the most

prestigious aristocratic group. They generally numbered between 3 and 600 in the

Prinkaput, sometimes as much as 900 under Julius Caesar.

But membership was quite restricted.

So beneath them, the second higher social group the equities and they encompassed a wide

...