Roman Cavalry Bibliography

I was going through some of my old emails and found a bibliography I had compiled for a friend on the Roman Cavalry. I attended a Roman re-enactment in October 2004 in Nashville. A Deepeeka representative had a reconstructed Roman cavalry saddle (Deepeeka item code AH6405). This really peeked my interest.

Picture I took at the Roman re-enactment of the Deepeeka saddle (see the Photography section for additional pictures):

One of the vendors at the event said they were going to have a fellow re-enactor test the saddle. (Haven’t heard back about that yet.) They wanted to research Roman saddles and cavalry, so I compiled a brief bibliography.

Below is a brief bibliography on the Roman Cavalry, including articles on tactics, units, training, horses, and equipment. See this bibliography for additional references. Of the books below, the Cheesman, Hyland, and Speidel books are probably some of the most useful. Hyland is an equestrienne — she discusses the history with a focus on horses and in some cases actually tries cavalry equipment and moves on her own horse.

Cheesman, G. L. (1971). The auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army. Hildesheim, G. Olms. ISBN 0890050961

Connolly, P. (1987). “The Roman Saddle.” BAR International Series 336: 7-27.

Connolly, P. (1986). “A Reconstruction of a Roman Saddle.” Britannia 17: 353-5.

Dixon, K. R. and P. Southern (1992). Roman Cavalry: from the first to the third century AD. London, Batsford. ISBN 0713463961

Goldsworthy, A. (2003). The Complete Roman Army. New York, NY, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500051240

Hyland, A. (1993). Training the Roman cavalry: from Arrian’s Ars Tactica. Dover, NH, Alan Sutton. ISBN 0862999847

Hyland, A. and J. Mann (1990). Equus: the Horse in the Roman World. London, B.T. Batsford, Ltd. ISBN 0713462604

Hyland, A (2003). The Horse in the Ancient World. Praegar Publishers. ISBN 0275981142 http://www.amazon.com/Horse-Ancient-World-Ann-Hyland/

Junkelmann, M. (1990). Die Reiter Roms. Mainz am Rhein, P. v. Zabern. Three volumes ISBN: 3805310064 (v. 1), 3805311397 (v. 2), 3805312881 (v. 3)

MacDowall, S. (1995). Late Roman cavalryman, 236-565 AD. Oxford, Osprey. ISBN 1841762601

McCall, J. B. (2001). The Cavalry of the Roman Republic: Cavalry Combat and Elite Reputations in the Middle and Late Republic. New York, Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd. ISBN 0415257131

Spaul, J. E. H. and C. Cichorius (1994). Ala: the auxiliary cavalry units
of the pre-Diocletianic imperial Roman army. Andover, Nectoreca Press. ISBN 0952506203. Paperback. http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm\?&ID=11795

Speidel, M. P. (1994). Riding for Caesar: the Roman Emperors’ Horse Guards. Cambridge, Massachusettes, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-76897-3

Stephenson, I. P. and K. Dixon (2003). Roman Cavalry Equipment.
Glouchestershire and Charleston, Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-1421-6

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