Legion Equites and Singulares

[Steven James]

Does anyone know what a legion equites and singulares would look like in the principate? Or is this another unsolved mystery?

Thank you in advance

Steven

[dadlamassu]

I am not sure that this will help much.  When I was searching for suitable figures for my Roman Legion (Legio VI Victrix) project I found that there was a dearth of information on these two unit types.  I found contradictory information on numbers in the Equites Legionis.  I found a few illustrations but little actual evidence.
Graham Sumner depits a 2nd Century equites legionis as


Since my intention was to build an entire legion a 1/20 figure scale for rank and file I decided upon the often quoted (Josephus) figure of 120 giving 6 figures for the Equites Legionis.  This still left me with the problem of which model soldiers to use. 
In the end, after interminable Google searches and delving into books the best dress I could come up with was that my toy soldiers would be dressed in in a similar fashion to his footsore counterparts except that I gave them lorica hamata instead of  the lorica segmentata of the line cohorts as I thought the mail might be more suited to mounted warfare, plumed attic helmets, oval shield with the same heraldry as the footsoldiers, they all wear cloaks and I armed them with spears.  All of this was to differentiate them from my Auxiliary cavalry.  So what I have ended up with is a conjectural idea of two cavalry units in a more upmarket style of dress than the rest of the legionaries.  The yellow plumes came from my notes but I forget the sourse (Arrian or Vegetius maybe?)

My equites legionis


My equites singulares were even more problematic.  So I used the same figures, painted differently and with a different shield heraldry.