I am certain Rome could have come up with more horses in the course of a year. One could buy them by the boatload in Thessaly. What I don't know is if a year is enough tome to train the men.


Your point about the self interest of The Equites is a good one. There must have been a lot of Equestrian young men killed in the previous years. That would account for some of the shortage.


You can yank a boy off the farm and slap a suit of armor on him and train him in a year to be good enough to send into battle, but can you do the same with a cavalry man?