Ala I Batavorum Equitata
Missile Cavalry(0.6.7)Side / Back
Short description
Ala Equestrus are highly disciplined and skilled cavalrymen who provide support to Roman legionaries in battle.
Description
Dio Cassius comments upon Hadrian and the rigorous training that he insisted his troops be tutored: "So excellently, indeed, had his soldiery been trained that the cavalry of the Batavians, as they were called, swam the Ister with their arms. Seeing all this, the barbarians stood in terror of the Romans, they employed Hadrian as an arbitrator of their differences".(Dio Cassius Liber LXIX 9.6) The implication is that the Batavians possessed a unique skill. However, there is a gravestone of a certain Soranus, a trooper in a Batavian milliary cohort. Soranus' epitaph records that in AD118 he, before the Emperor Hadrian, swam the Danube and performed the following feats:
Ille ego Pannoniis quondam notissimus oris
inter mille viros fortis primusq(ue) Batavos
Hadriano potui qui iudice vasta profundi
aequora Danuvii cunctis transnare sub armis
emissumq(ue) arcu dum pendet in aere telum
ac redit ex alia fixi fregique sagitta
quem neque Romanus potuit nec barbarus unquam
non iaculo miles non arcu vincere Parthus
hic situs hic memori saxo mea facta sacravi
viderit an ne aliquis post me mea facta sequ[a]tur
exemplo mihi sum primus qui talia gessi
"The man who, once very well known to the ranks in Pannonia, brave and foremost among one thousand Batavians, was able, with Hadrian as judge, to swim the wide waters of the deep Danube in full battle kit. From my bow I fired an arrow, and while it quivered still in the air and was falling back, with a second arrow I hit and broke it. No Roman or foreigner has ever managed to better this feat, no soldier with a javelin, no Parthian with a bow. Here I lie, here I have immortalised my deeds on an ever-mindful stone which will see if anyone after me will rival my deeds. I set a precedent for myself in being the first to achieve such feats".
The Batavians were a notable addition to the forces of the Roman army from the reign of Caesar, until the reign of Romulus Augustulus. They played an important role in the successes of, and supplementation to, the Legions of the Roman army. Our Batavian unit honours these men and perpetuates their fine tradition.