TURMA

In the Roman Legion, a company of horse, of which ten formed the whole complement of the legion. According to Varro, it consisted of thirty horsemen, ten answering to each of the three original equestrian tribes, the Tatienses, Hamnenses, and Luceres. But in addition to the ten, there seems to have been two file leaders; and as the word turnia was sometimes indiscriminately used for the subdivision or third part of the full turm a, the following lines of Virgil's JEneid seem to describe the arrangemnt: Tres equitum numero turm a?, ternique vagaotur Duciores; puen bbseni quemque seculi. (See M. Le Beau's 8th Di ertation on the Roman Legion, Mem. de VJlc. des hiscr., vol. XXXii.) [s. 1293]