A still nearer connection can be found between the Roman and the Greek horsemen. As is proved by archaeology, the earliest Greek knights had no specialized weapons or armor and were not accustomed to fight on horseback, but were heavy infantry who used their horses simply as conveyance.[429] The same is true of the earliest Roman equites, whose equipment closely resembled that of the Greek horsemen. On account of their swiftness they were primitively called celeres.[430] Although these mounted footmen are generally known as equites, which in this sense may but loosely be translated knights, the Romans did not institute a true cavalry till the period of the Samnite wars.[431] It is a curious fact that some horsemen, Roman as well as Greek, were provided each with two horses,[432] one for the warrior and the other for his squire,[433] and that the mounted soldiers of Etruria were in these respects the same.[434] A further resemblance between the earliest Greek and Roman horsemen lies in the fact that they were noble.[435] In their account of the growth of the mounted service during the regal period the ancient authorities show great inconsistencies. It seems probable that the early annalists pictured the increase in the knights in a way analogous to that of the senate: at first Romulus formed a troop, or century, from the Ramnes; afterward a second was added from the Tities; and still later the Luceres furnished a third.[436] Then Tarquinius Priscus doubled the number, making six in all, and Servius finally increased it to eighteen centuries. This simple development, itself a reconstruction, was complicated by the desire of the historians to make the number of knights under Servius agree with the number under Augustus, given by Dionysius[437] at about 5000; hence the assumption of 200 or even 300 knights to the century as early as the reign of Romulus.[438] It is possible by clearing away these evident misconceptions to discover the approximate truth.