RIDERS · EquestRian OffIcers as an Innovative Tool for Developing a MiDdle-out Approach to Roman ImpERial EliteS (1st-3rd AD)

Roman society is elitist by nature and is thus represented by most available sources. Roman imperial elites have been long investigated, however scholars usually focused only on the two extremes of elites, either the top level (elites employed in high imperial administration), or the bottom one (civic elites). No attention was devoted to investigating the existence of a “middle-elite”. The RIDERS project offers an innovative investigation of Roman imperial elites with the ambitious purpose of changing traditional models of interpretation, moving beyond a top-down approach (i.e. focusing on the top level) and a bottom-up one (i.e. focusing on the bottom level), by developing a ground-breaking middle-out approach.After over three decades since the last complete work devoted to equestrian officers, the RIDERS project re-addresses the entire corpus of the 2,500 equestrian officers currently known, to develop an innovative tool for an in-depth investigation of imperial middle-elites. By applying a multidisciplinary methodology, based on traditional prosopography integrated with sociological methods and supported by digital humanities, the RIDERS project will develop, as its main outcomes, the first database devoted to equestrian officers and the first monograph on imperial middle-elites. The ambition of the RIDERS project consists in applying also to elites the social concept of “middle”, usually employed only for the remaining part of society. Suggesting that even elites had a “middle”, not only a top or a bottom, will ambitiously contribute to improving our knowledge of Roman society, which was much more complex and variegated than studies have hitherto highlighted.