Roman Cavalry

One battle that illustrates this issue is the battle of Heraclea, where the Romans faced Pyrrhus. The Romans outnumbered the Greeks significantly, but they suffered a critical defeat in which they lost thousands of soldiers. The Roman cavalry faced off against the greatly feared Thessalian heavy cavalry: "On the flanks, however, the Roman cavalry would face the famous Thessalian heavy cavalry and others modeled on Alexander's Companions, commanded by the king himself" (Sidnell, 165). They more than held their own against these elite warriors "Far from being overwhelmed by Pyrrhus' Epirot companions and Thessalians, the Roman horsemen actually held their own in a hard fought melee and eventually started to gain the upper hand" (Sidnell, 166).
During the Battle of Magnesia, the Romans decisively defeated Antiochus III and his numerically superior army. Even though the Roman cavalry did not play a major role in this battle, their minor casualties were of great benefit to the army: "Many of the Romans were wounded, but there actually fell not more than 300 infantry, 24 cavalry and 25 of the army of Eumenes"; whereas their opponents lost many more soldiers: "50,000 infantry were killed on that day and 3000 of the cavalry" (Livy, 37.44). At the Battle of Zama, the Roman cavalry played a major role in the destruction of the Carthaginian army. First, part of the Carthaginian cavalry was chased from the field: "so clearing the Carthaginian left of its cavalry" (Livy, 30.33). Then Roman legions attacked the other wing of the cavalry: "The leading maniples also kept up a fusillade of missiles until these animals too were driven out of the Roman lines on to their own side and put the Carthaginian cavalry" (Livy, 30.33).This led to the total destruction of the Carthaginian army: "The enemy were routed, many were surrounded and killed in action, those who dispersed in flight over the open country were killed by the cavalry who were in possession of every part" (Livy, 30.35). The extreme success of the Roman citizen cavalry over the Carthaginian cavalry prevented the
Some of the cavalry failures were due to superiority of the enemy cavalry, and some were due to poor leadership and battle planning in general. There is no evidence that the cavalry was replaced due to gross incompetence. If it was not a lack of cavalry skill that caused the Romans to remove the citizen cavalry, what was the cause. These reasons were cultural and practical, in addition to military in nature, and arose mostly from the upheavals caused by the Social