Roman society was strictly hierarchized and members of the elite are the most represented in the available documentation. As the Empire progressively incorporated as provinces many new territories with different political and social organizations, the traditional Roman elite had to cope with the various provincial elites, which differed significantly in terms of religion, language and traditions. Still, despite her strong hierarchization, Roman aristocracy was never a closed group.
Members of local aristocracies – even those coming from remote provinces – could aspire, by serving the emperor in various ways, to integrate the equestrian order (ordo equester), and, perhaps, even the senatorial rank. The traditional Roman elite and civic elites represent the two poles of the complex cultural phenomenon known as Romanisation, i.e. the result of integrating different populations into the Roman political system, by conforming with the culture of Greco-Roman empire.
Heretofore, scholars have investigated Roman imperial elites mainly focusing on the two extremes, either the imperial Roman elite (i.e. senators and equestrians employed in the high imperial administration) or the civic elites. Using terms borrowed from electronics, we can say that scholars have generally developed on the one hand a top-down approach (i.e. starting from the top, in this case senators and equestrians employed in imperial administration), on the other hand a bottom-up one (i.e. starting from the bottom, in this case civic elite members), thus omitting a middle-out perspective (focusing on everything between the top and the bottom, in this case elite members who were concurrently part of civic elites and traditional elites, neither reaching the top of the traditional elite nor remaining at the bottom of the civic one).
What was still lacking was, in fact, an in-depth analysis of what lies between the two social extremes of the traditional Roman elite and civic elites: who was elevated to the equestrian rank, covering roles in imperial administration, but also remained fully engaged in their communities as working members of the local élite?
The RIDERS project aimed to fill this gap by conducting an innovative and multidisciplinary analysis of 2,500 equestrian officers, covering the period from the reign of Emperor Claudius (41–54 AD) to that of Emperor Gallienus (260–268 AD).
In particular, the RIDERS project objectives were fivefold:
- Analysis of interpersonal ties of equestrian officers
- Investigation of the social identity of equestrian officers
- Understanding the spatial relations of equestrian officers
- Study of the public representation of equestrian officers
- Investigation of the social mobility of equestrian officers
