Editing Equestrian statue (section)

===Ancient Rome===
[[File:Roman - Head of a Horse - Walters 54759 - Profile.jpg|thumb|left|This horse head from [[Suasa]] was once part of a large equestrian monument. {{circa|40 AD}}. [[Walters Art Museum]], [[Baltimore]].]]

Such statues frequently commemorated military leaders, and those statesmen who wished to [[symbol]]ically emphasize the active leadership role undertaken since Roman times by the equestrian class, the ''[[equites]]'' (plural of ''eques'') or knights.

There were numerous [[bronze]] equestrian portraits (particularly of the emperors) in [[ancient Rome]], but they did not survive because they were melted down for reuse of the alloy as [[coin]], [[church bell]]s, or other, smaller projects (such as new sculptures for Christian churches); the standing [[Colossus of Barletta]] lost parts of his legs and arms to Dominican bells in 1309. Almost the only sole surviving [[Roman Empire|Roman]] equestrian bronze, the [[equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius|equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius]] in Rome, owes its preservation on the [[Campidoglio]], to the popular misidentification of [[Marcus Aurelius]], the philosopher-emperor, with [[Constantine the Great]], the Christian emperor. The ''[[Regisole]]'' ("Sun King") was a bronze classical or Late Antique equestrian monument of a ruler, highly influential during the Italian Renaissance but destroyed in 1796 in the wake of the [[French Revolution]]. It was originally erected at [[Ravenna]], but moved to [[Pavia]] in the Middle Ages, where it stood on a column before the cathedral. A fragment of an equestrian portrait sculpture of [[Augustus]] has also survived.