Cataphract

army, Seleucids, Pergamenes, the Sassanid army, the

Roman army, the Goths and the Byzantine army. In several cases the term is used to denote a Parthian chariot.
In the West, the fashion for heavily armored Roman cavalry seems to have been a response to the Eastern campaigns of the Parthians and Sassanids in the region referred to as Asia Minor, as well as numerous defeats at
the hands of cataphracts across the steppes of Eurasia, the
most notable of which is the Battle of Carrhae. Traditionally, Roman cavalry was neither heavily armored nor all
that eective; the Roman Equites corps were composed
mainly of lightly armored horsemen bearing spears and
swords to chase down stragglers and to rout enemies. The
adoption of cataphract-like cavalry formations took hold
amongst the late Roman army during the late 3rd and 4th
centuries. The Emperor Gallienus Augustus (253268
AD) and his general and would-be usurper Aureolus bear
much of the responsibility for the institution of Roman
cataphract contingents in the Late Roman army.

1 Etymology
Historical re-enactment of a Sassanid-era cataphract, complete
with a full set of scale armor for the horse. Note the riders extensive mail armor, which was de rigueur for the cataphracts of
antiquity.

The genesis is undoubtedly Greek.

Kataphraktos
(, or various transliterations such as Cataphraktos, Cataphractos, or Katafraktos) is composed of
the Greek root words, , a preposition, and ,
covered, protected, which is interpreted along the lines
A cataphract was a form of armored heavy cavalry used of fully armored or closed from all sides. The term
in ancient warfare by a number of peoples in Western rst appears substantively in Latin, in the writings of
Eurasia and the Eurasian Steppe.
Sisennus: " loricatos, quos cataphractos vocant ",
The word in English is derived from the Greek: - meaning " the armored, whom they call cataphract
Kataphraktos (plural: Kat- ".[2]
aphraktoi), literally meaning armored or completely
There appears to be some confusion about the term in
enclosed. Historically, the cataphract was a very heavily the late Roman period, as armored cavalry men of any
armored horseman, with both the rider and steed draped sort that were traditionally referred to as Equites in the
from head to toe in scale armor, while typically wielding Republican period later became exclusively designated as
a kontos or lance as their weapon.
cataphracts. Vegetius, writing in the fourth century,
Cataphracts served as either the elite cavalry or assault
force for most empires and nations that elded them, primarily used for impetuous charges to break through infantry formations. Chronicled by many historians from
the earliest days of Antiquity up until the High Middle
Ages, they are believed to have inuenced the later European knights, via contact with the Byzantine Empire.[1]

described armor of any sort as cataphracts which at

the time of writing would have been either lorica segmentata or lorica hamata. Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman soldier and historian of the fourth century, mentions
the: "cataphracti equites (quos clibanarios dictitant)" the
cataphract cavalry which they regularly call Clibanarii"
(implying that clibanarii is a foreign term, not used in
Notable peoples and states deploying cataphracts at some Classical Latin).
point in their history include: the Scythians, Sarmatians, Clibanarii is a Latin word for mail-clad riders, itself a
Parthian army, Achaemenid army, Sakas, Armenian derivative of the Greek: Klibanophoroi,
1

IRANIAN ORIGINS

that cataphracts and clibanarii were one and the same

type of cavalry, designated dierently simply as a result
of their divided geographical locations and local linguistic
preferences. Cataphract-like cavalry under the command
of the Western Roman Empire, where Latin was the ocial tongue, always bore the Latinized variant of the original Greek name, Cataphractarii. The cataphract-like cavalry stationed in the Eastern Roman Empire had no exclusive term ascribed to them, with both the Latin variant
and the Greek innovation Clibanarii being used in historical sources, largely because of the Byzantine's heavy
Greek inuence (especially after the 7th century, when
Latin ceased to be the ocial language). Contemporary
sources, however, sometimes imply that clibanarii were
in fact a heavier type of cavalryman, or formed specialpurpose units (such as the late Equites Sagittarii Clibanarii, a Roman equivalent of horse archers, rst mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum). Therefore, either side
can be argued, but given the fact that cataphract was
used for more than a millennium by various cultures, it
stands to reason that dierent types of fully armored cavalry in the armies of dierent nations were assigned this
name by Greek and Roman scholars not familiar with the
native terms for such cavalry.

Relief Taq-e Bostan (Kermanshah Province in Iran) from the era

of Sassanid Empire: One of the oldest depictions of a cataphract.
The gure on top in the middle is believed to be Khosrau II. The
gure to the right is Ahura Mazda, and to the left is the Persian
Goddess Anahita. The cataphract is not known, although various
theories exist on his identity, but he is certainly of royal nobility.

meaning camp oven bearers from the Greek word

, meaning camp oven or metallic furnace";
the word has also been tentatively linked to the Persian
word for a warrior, grivpan. However, it appears with
more frequency in Latin sources than in Greek throughout antiquity. A twofold origin of the Greek term has
been proposed: either that it was a humorous reference to
the heavily armored cataphracts as men encased in armor
who would heat up very quickly much like in an oven; or
that it was further derived from the Old Persian word *griwbanar (or *Grivpanvar), itself composed of the Iranian
roots griva-pana-bara, which translates into neck-guard
wearer.[3]
Roman chroniclers and historians Arrian, Aelian and
Asclepiodotus use the term cataphract in their military
treatises to describe any type of cavalry with either partial or full horse and rider armor. The Byzantine historian Leo Diaconis calls them
pansiderois ippotas, which would translate as fully ironclad knights.[4]
There is, therefore, some doubt as to what exactly cataphracts were in late antiquity, and whether or not they
were distinct from clibanarii. Some historians theorise

2 Iranian origins

The extent of the early Iranian Scythians and Parthians at approximately 100 BC, to whom the rst recorded use of true,
cataphract-like cavalry can be attributed in classical antiquity

The reliance on cavalry as a means of warfare in general lies with the ancient inhabitants of the Central Asian
steppes in early antiquity, who were one of the rst peoples to domesticate the horse and pioneered the development of the chariot.[5] Most of these nomadic tribes
and wandering pastoralists circa 2000 BC were largely
Bronze-Age, Iranian populations who migrated from the
steppes of Central Asia into the Iranian Plateau and
Greater Iran from around 1000 BC to 800 BC. Two of
these tribes are attested based upon archaeological evidence: the Mitanni and the Kassites. Although evidence is scant, they are believed to have raised and
bred horses for specic purposes, as is evidenced by the

3
large archaeological record of their use of the chariot
and several treatises on the training of chariot horses.[6]
The one founding prerequisite towards the development
of cataphract cavalry in the Ancient Near East, apart
from advanced metalworking techniques and the necessary grazing pastures for raising horses, was the evolution of selective breeding and animal husbandry. Cataphract cavalry needed immensely strong and endurant
horses, and without selectively breeding horses for muscular strength and hardiness, they would have surely not
been able to bear the immense loads of armor and a rider
during the strain of battle.[7] The Near East is generally
believed to have been the focal point for where this rst
occurred.
The previously mentioned early Indo-Iranian kingdoms
and statehoods were to a large degree the ancestors of
the north-eastern Iranian tribes and the Medians, who
would found the rst Iranian Empire in 625 BC. It was
the Median Empire that left the rst written proof of
horse breeding around the 7th century BC, being the
rst to propagate a specic horse breed, known as the
Nisean, which originated in the Zagros Mountains for use
as heavy cavalry.[8] The Nisean would become renowned
in the Ancient World and particularly in Ancient Persia
as the mount of nobility. These warhorses, sometimes referred to as Nisean chargers,[9] were highly sought after by the Greeks, and are believed to have inuenced
many modern horse breeds. With the growing aggressiveness of cavalry in warfare, protection of the rider and
the horse became paramount. This was especially true of
peoples who treated cavalry as the basic arm of their military, such as the Ancient Persians, including the Medes
and the successive Persian dynasties. To a larger extent,
the same can said of all the Ancient Iranian peoples: second only to perhaps the bow, horses were held in reverence and importance in these societies as their preferred
and mastered medium of warfare, due to an intrinsic link
throughout history with the domestication and evolution
of the horse.
These early riding traditions, which were strongly tied
to the ruling caste of nobility (as only those of noble
birth or caste could become cavalry warriors), now spread
throughout the Eurasian steppes and Iranian plateau from
around 600 BC and onwards due to contact with the
Median Empire's vast expanse across Central Asia, which
was the native homeland of the early, north-eastern Iranian ethnic groups such as the Massagetae, Scythians,
Sakas, and Dahae.[8] The successive Persian Empires that
followed the Medes after their downfall in 550 BC took
these already long-standing military tactics and horsebreeding traditions and infused their centuries of experience and veterancy from conicts against the Greek citystates, Babylonians, Assyrians, Scythians, and North Arabian tribes with the signicant role cavalry played not
only in warfare but everyday life to form a military reliant almost entirely upon armored horses for battle.

3 Spread to Central Asia and the

Near East

The evolution of the heavily armored horseman was not

isolated to one focal point during a specic era (such
as the Iranian plateau), but rather developed simultaneously in dierent parts of Central Asia (especially among
the peoples inhabiting the Silk Road) as well as within
Greater Iran. Assyria and the Khwarezm region were
also signicant to the development of cataphract-like cavalry during the 1st millennium BC. Reliefs discovered in
the ancient ruins of Nimrud (the ancient Assyrian city
founded by king Shalmaneser I during the 13th century
BC) are the earliest known depictions of riders wearing
plated-mail shirts composed of metal scales, presumably
deployed to provide the Assyrians with a tactical advantage over the unprotected mounted archers of their nomadic enemies, primarily the Aramaeans, Mushki, North
Arabian tribes and the Babylonians. The Tiglath-Pileser
III (745727 BC) period, under which the Neo-Assyrian
Empire was formed and reached its military peak, is believed to have been the rst context within which the Assyrian kingdom formed crude regiments of cataphractlike cavalry. Even when armed only with pikes, these
early horsemen were eective mounted cavalrymen, but
when provided with bows under Sennacherib (705681
BC), they eventually became capable both of long-range
and hand-to-hand combat, mirroring the development of
dual-purpose cataphract archers by the Parthian Empire
during the 1st century BC.[10]
Archaeological excavations also indicate that, by the 6th
century BC, similar experimentation had taken place
among the Iranian peoples inhabiting the Khwarezm region and Aral Sea basin, such as the Massagetae, Dahae
and Saka. While the oensive weapons of these prototype cataphracts were identical to those of the Assyrians,
they diered in that not only the mount but also the head
and anks of the horse were protected by armor. Whether
this development was inuenced by the Assyrians, as Rubin postulates,[11] or perhaps the Achaemenid Empire, or
whether they occurred spontaneously and entirely unrelated to the advances in heavily armored cavalry made in
the Ancient Near East, cannot be discerned by the archaeological records left by these mounted nomads.[12]
The further evolution of these early forms of heavy cavalry in Western Eurasia is not entirely clear. Heavily
armored riders on large horses appear in 4th century
BC frescoes in the northern Black Sea region, notably
at a time when the Scythians, who relied on light horse
archers, were superseded by the Sarmatians.[13] By the
3rd century BC, light cavalry units were used in most eastern armies, but still only relatively few states in the East
or West attempted to imitate the Assyrian and Chorasmian experiments with mailed cavalry.[14]

Hellenistic and Roman adoption

A stone-etched relief depicting a Parthian cataphract ghting

against a lion. Housed in the British Museum.

The Greeks rst encountered cataphracts during the

Greco-Persian Wars of the 5th century BC with the
Achaemenid Empire. The Ionian Revolt, an uprising
against Persian rule in Asia Minor which preluded the
First Persian invasion of Greece, is very likely the rst
Western encounter of cataphract cavalry, and to a degree heavy cavalry in general. The cataphract was widely
adopted by the Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic successors of Alexander the Great's kingdom who reigned over
conquered Persia and Asia Minor after his death in 323
BC. The Parthians, who wrested control over their native
Persia from the last Seleucid Kingdom in the East in 147
BC, were also noted for their reliance upon cataphracts as
well as horse archers in battle.
The Romans came to know cataphracts during their frequent wars in the Hellenistic East. During their early
encounters, cataphracts remained ineective against the
Roman foot soldier, being decisively defeated in the
Battle of Magnesia (189 BC) and in the battle of
Lucullus with Tigran the Great near Tigranocerta in 69
BC.[15][16] In 38 BC, the Roman general Publius Ventidius, by making extensive use of slingers, whose longrange weapons proved very eective, defeated the uphillstorming Parthian armored cavalry, forcing the Parthians
to retreat from all Roman territories occupied since the
Battle of Carrhae.[17]
At the time of Augustus, the Greek geographer Strabo
considered cataphracts with horse armor to be typical of
Armenian, Caucasian Albanian, and Persian armies, but,
according to Plutarch, they were still held in rather low
esteem in the Hellenistic world due to their poor tactical abilities against disciplined infantry as well as against
more mobile, light cavalry.[16] However, the lingering period of exposure to cataphracts at the eastern frontier as
well as the growing military pressure of the Sarmatian
lancers on the Danube frontier led to a gradual integration of cataphracts into the Roman army.[18][19] Thus, al-

APPEARANCE AND EQUIPMENT

though armored riders were used in the Roman army as

early as the 2nd century BC (Polybios, VI, 25, 3),[20] the
rst recorded deployment and use of cataphracts (equites
cataphractarii) by the Roman Empire comes in the 2nd
century AD, during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117
138 AD), who created the rst, regular unit of auxiliary,
mailed cavalry called the ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum catafractata.[21] A key architect in the process was
evidently the Roman emperor Gallienus, who created a
highly mobile force in response to the multiple threats
along the northern and eastern frontier.[22] However, as
late as 272 AD, Aurelian's army, completely composed
of light cavalry, defeated Zenobia at the Battle of Immae, proving the continuing importance of mobility on
the battleeld.[23]
The Romans fought a prolonged and indecisive campaign
in the East against the Parthians beginning in 53 BC,
commencing with the defeat of Marcus Licinius Crassus (close benefactor of Julius Caesar) and his 35,000
legionaries at Carrhae. This initially unexpected and humiliating defeat for Rome was followed by numerous
campaigns over the next two centuries entailing many notable engagements such as: the Battle of Cilician Gates,
Mount Gindarus, Mark Antonys Parthian Campaign and
nally culminating in the bloody Battle of Nisibis in
217 AD, which resulted in a slight Parthian victory, and
Emperor Macrinus being forced to concede peace with
Parthia.[15][16] As a result of this lingering period of exposure to cataphracts, by the 4th century, the Roman Empire had adopted a number of vexillations of mercenary
cataphract cavalry (see the Notitia Dignitatum), such as
the Sarmatian Auxiliaries.[18][19] The Romans deployed
both native and mercenary units of cataphracts throughout the Empire, from Asia Minor all the way to Britain,
where a contingent of 5,500 Sarmatian cataphracts were
posted in the 3rd century by Emperor Marcus Aurelius
(see End of Roman rule in Britain).
This tradition was later paralleled by the rise of feudalism
in Christian Europe in the Early Middle Ages and the
establishment of the knighthood particularly during the
Crusades, while the Eastern Romans continued to maintain a very active corps of cataphracts long after their
Western counterparts fell in 476 AD.

5 Appearance and equipment

But no sooner had the rst light of day
appeared, than the glittering coats of mail,
girt with bands of steel, and the gleaming
cuirasses, seen from afar, showed that the
kings forces were at hand.
Ammianus Marcellinus, late Roman
historian and soldier, describing the sight
of Persian cataphracts approaching Roman
infantry in Asia Minor, circa fourth century.[24]

5
as a cohesive suit), with large plates of scales tied together around the animals waist, ank, shoulders, neck
and head (especially along the breastplate of the saddle)
independently to give a further degree of movement for
the horse and to allow the armor to be axed to the horse
reasonably tightly so that it should not loosen too much
during movement. Usually but not always, a close-tting
helmet that covered the head and neck was worn by the
rider; the Persian variants extended this even further and
encased the wearers entire head in metal, leaving only
minute slits for the nose and eyes as openings. Ammianus
Marcellinus, a noted Roman historian and general who
served in the army of Constantius II in Gaul and Persia
and fought against the Sassanid army under Julian the
Apostate, described the sight of a contingent of massed
Persian cataphracts in the 4th century:
all the companies were clad in iron, and
all parts of their bodies were covered with thick
plates, so tted that the sti-joints conformed
with those of their limbs; and the forms of
human faces were so skillfully tted to their
heads, that since their entire body was covered
with metal, arrows that fell upon them could
lodge only where they could see a little through
tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or
where through the tip of their nose they were
able to get a little breath. Of these some, who
were armed with pikes, stood so motionless
that you would think them held fast by clamps
of bronze.[25]

Three examples of the various styles of interweaving and wire

threading that were commonly employed in the creation of cataphract scale armor to form a stiened, armored shell with
which to protect the horse.

Cataphracts were almost universally clad in some form

of scale armor (Greek: Falidotos, equivalent
to the Roman Lorica squamata) that was exible enough
to give the rider and horse a good degree of motion, but
strong enough to resist the immense impact of a thunderous charge into infantry formations. Scale armor was
made from overlapping, rounded plates of bronze or iron
(varying in thickness from four to six millimeters), which
had two or four holes drilled into the sides, to be threaded
with a bronze wire that was then sewn onto an undergarment of leather or animal hide, worn by the horse. A
full set of cataphract armor consisted of approximately
1,300 or so scales and could weigh an astonishing 40
kilograms or 88 pounds (not inclusive of the riders body
weight). Less commonly, plated mail or lamellar armor
(which is similar in appearance but divergent in design, as
it has no backing) was substituted for scale armor, while
for the most part the rider wore chain mail. Specically,
the horse armor was usually sectional (not joined together

The primary weapon of practically all cataphract forces

throughout history was the lance. Cataphract lances
(known in Greek as a Kontos (oar) or in Latin as a Contus) appeared much like the Hellenistic armies' sarissae
used by the famed Greek phalanxes as an anti-cavalry
weapon. They were roughly four meters in length, with a
capped point made of iron, bronze, or even animal bone
and usually wielded with both hands. Most had a chain attached to the horses neck and at the end by a fastening attached to the horses hind leg, which supported the use of
the lance by transferring the full momentum of a horses
gallop to the thrust of the charge. Though they lacked stirrups, the traditional Roman saddle had four horns with
which to secure the rider;[26] enabling a soldier to stay
seated upon the full impact. During the Sassanid era, the
Persian military developed ever more secure saddles to
fasten the rider to the horses body, much like the later
knightly saddles of Medieval Europe. These saddles had a
cantle at the back of the saddle and two guard clamps that
curved across the top of the riders thighs and fastened
to the saddle, thereby enabling the rider to stay properly
seated, especially during violent contact in battle.[27]
Although not as powerful as the impact of the couched
lance of Medieval cavalrymen, the penetrating power of
the cataphracts lance was recognized as being fearful by
Roman writers, described as being capable of transx-

6 TACTICS AND DEPLOYMENT

ing two men at once, as well as inicting deep and mortal wounds even on opposing cavalries mounts, and were
denitely more potent than the regular one-handed spear
used by most other cavalries of the period. Accounts of
later period Middle Eastern cavalrymen wielding them
told of occasions when it was capable of bursting through
two layers of chain mail.[28] There are also reliefs in Iran
from Firuzabad showing Persian kings doing battle in a
fashion not dissimilar to later depictions of jousts and
mounted combat from the Medieval era.[29]

Equestrian Relief at Firuzabad Iran showing Cataphracts dueling

with lances

Cataphracts would often be equipped with an additional

side-arm such as a sword or mace, for use in the melee
that often followed a charge. Some wore armor that was
primarily frontal: providing protection for a charge and
against missiles yet oering relief from the weight and
encumbrance of a full suit. In yet another variation, cataphracts in some eld armies were not equipped with
shields at all, particularly if they had heavy body armor, as
having both hands occupied with a shield and lance left no
room to eectively steer the horse. Eastern and Persian
cataphracts, particularly those of the Sassanid Empire,
carried bows as well as blunt-force weapons, to soften
up enemy formations before an eventual attack, reecting
upon the longstanding Persian tradition of horse archery
and its use in battle by successive Persian Empires.

Tactics and deployment

While they varied in design and appearance, cataphracts

were universally the heavy assault force of most nations
that deployed them, acting as shock troops to deliver the
bulk of an oensive manoeuvre, while being supported
by various forms of infantry and archers (both mounted
and unmounted). While their roles in military history often seem to overlap with lancers or generic heavy cavalry,
they should not be considered analogous to these forms of
cavalry, and instead represent the separate evolution of a
very distinct class of heavy cavalry in the Near East that
had certain connotations of prestige, nobility, and esprit
de corps attached to them. In many armies, this reected
upon social stratication or a caste system, as only the
wealthiest men of noble birth could aord the panoply
of the cataphract, not to mention the costs of supporting
several war horses and ample amounts of weaponry and
armor.

The cataphract-style parade armor of a Saka (Scythian) royal

from the Issyk kurgan, dubbed Golden Man. Note the overlapping golden scales, which is typical of cataphract armor.

Fire support was deemed particularly important for the

proper deployment of cataphracts. The Parthian army
that defeated the Romans at Carrhae in 53 BC operated
primarily as a combined arms team of cataphracts and
horse archers against the Roman heavy infantry. The
Parthian horse archers encircled the Roman formation

7
and bombarded it with arrows from all sides, forcing the
legionnaire to form testudo to ensure all around protection from the huge numbers of incoming arrows. This
then made them fatally susceptible to a massed cataphract
charge, since the testudo made the legionnaires immobile and incapable of attacking or defending themselves in
close combat against the long reach of the Parthian kontos. The end result was a far smaller force of Parthian
cataphracts and horse archers wiping out a Roman cohort
four times their size numerically, due to a combination of
re and movement, which pinned the enemy down, wore
them out and left them vulnerable to a concluding deathblow.
The cataphract charge was very eective due to the
disciplined riders and the large numbers of horses deployed. As early as the 1st century BC, especially during
the expansionist campaigns of the Parthian and Sassanid
dynasties, Eastern Iranian cataphracts employed by the
Scythians, Sarmatians, Parthians, and Sassanids presented a grievous problem for the traditionally less mobile, infantry-dependant Roman Empire. Roman writers throughout imperial history made much of the terror of facing cataphracts, let alone receiving their charge.
Parthian armies thus repeatedly repelled Roman incursions across the Euphrates, due in large part to the Romans ineptness in dealing with mobile warfare and particularly cataphracts.
Persian cataphracts were a contiguous division known as
the Savaran (Persian:
, literally meaning rider
of the horse) during the era of the Sassanid army and
remained a formidable force from the 3rd to 7th centuries until the collapse of the Sassanid Empire.[1] Initially the Sassanid dynasty continued the cavalry traditions of the Parthians, elding units of super-heavy cavalry. This gradually fell out of favour, and a universal
cavalryman was developed during the later 3rd century,
able to ght as a mounted archer as well as a cataphract.
This was perhaps in response to the harassing, nomadic
combat style used by the Sassanids northern neighbours
who frequently raided their borders, such as the Huns,
Hephthalites, Xiongnu, Scythians, and Kushans, all of
which favoured hit and run tactics and relied almost solely
upon horse archers for combat. However, as the RomanPersian wars intensied to the West, sweeping military reforms were again re-established. During the 4th century,
Shapur II of Persia attempted to reinstate the super-heavy
cataphracts of previous Persian dynasties to counter the
formation of the new, Roman Comitatenses, the dedicated, front-line legionaries who were the heavy infantry
of the late Roman Empire. The elite of the Persian cataphracts, known as the Pushtigban Body Guards, were
sourced from the very best of the Savaran divisions and
were akin in their deployment and military role to their
Roman counterparts, the Praetorian Guard, used exclusively by Roman emperors. Ammianus Marcellinus remarked in his memoirs that members of the Pushtigban
were able to impale two Roman soldiers on their spears

at once with a single furious charge. Persian cataphract

archery also seems to have been again revived in late antiquity, perhaps as a response (or even a stimulus) to an
emerging trend of the late Roman army towards mobility
and versatility in their means of warfare.
In an ironic twist, the elite of the East Roman army by
the 6th century had become the cataphract, modelled after the very force that had famously defeated and slaughtered their forebears numerous times more than 500 years
earlier. During the Iberian and Lazic wars initiated in the
Caucasus by Justinian I, it was noted by Procopius that
Persian cataphract archers were adept at ring their arrows in very quick succession and saturating enemy positions but with little hitting power, resulting in mostly nonincapacitating limb wounds for the enemy. The Roman
cataphracts, on the other hand, released their shots with
far more power, able to launch arrows with lethal kinetic
energy behind them, albeit at a slower pace.

7 Later history and usage in the

early Middle Ages

A depiction of Sarmatian cataphracts eeing from Roman cavalry during the Dacian wars circa 101 AD, at Trajans Column
in Rome

Some cataphracts elded by the later Roman Empire were

also equipped with heavy, lead-weight darts called Martiobarbuli, akin to the plumbata used by late Roman infantry. These were to be hurled at the enemy lines during
or just before a charge, to disorder the defensive formation immediately before the impact of the lances. With or
without darts, a cataphract charge would usually be supported by some kind of missile troops (mounted or unmounted) placed on either ank of the enemy formation.
Some armies formalised this tactic by deploying separate types of cataphract, the conventional, very heavily
armored, bowless lancer for the primary charge and a dual

7 LATER HISTORY AND USAGE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

purpose, lance-and-bow cataphract for supporting units.

Interestingly, references to Byzantine cataphracts seemed
to have disappeared in the late 6th century, as the famed
manual of war, the Strategikon of Maurice, published during the same period, made no mention of cataphracts
or their tactical employment. This absence persisted
through most of the Thematic period, until the cataphracts reappeared in Emperor Leo VI's Sylloge Taktikon, probably reecting a revival that paralleled the
transformation of the Byzantine army from a largely defensive force into a largely oensive force. The cataphracts deployed by the Byzantine Empire (most noticeably after the 7th century, when Late Latin ceased to be
the ocial language of the empire) were exclusively referred to as Kataphraktoi, due to the Byzantine Empires
strong Greek inuence, as opposed to the Romanized
term Cataphractos, which subsequently fell out of use.
These later Byzantine cataphracts were a much feared
force in their heyday. The army of Emperor Nikephoros
II Phokas reconstituted Kataphraktoi during the tenth
century and included a complex and highly developed
composition of an oensive, blunt-nosed wedge formation. Made up of roughly ve hundred cavalrymen, this
unit was clearly designed with a single decisive charge in
mind as the centre of the unit was composed of mounted
archers. These would release volleys of arrows into the
enemy as the unit advanced at a trot, with the rst four
rows of mace-armed Kataphractoi then penetrating the
enemy formation through the resulting disruption (contrary to popular representations, Byzantine Kataphraktoi
did not charge, they advanced at a steady medium-pace
trot and were designed to roll over an enemy already softened by the archers). It is important to note that this formation is the only method proscribed for Kataphraktoi
in the Praecepta Militaria of Emperor Nikephoros which
was designed as a decisive hammer-blow which would
break the enemy. Due to the rigidity of the formation,
it was not possible for it to re-form and execute a second
charge in instances where the rst blow did not smash the
enemy (no feigned ight or repeated charges were possible due to the formation employed). It is for this reason
that Byzantine military manuals (Praecepta Militaria and
the Taktika) advise where possible, for the use of a second wedge of Kataphractoi to which could be hurled at
the enemy in the event that they resisted the initial charge.
Contemporary depictions, however, imply that Byzantine
cataphracts were not as completely armored as the earlier Roman and Sassanid incarnation. The horse armor
was noticeably lighter than earlier examples, being made
of leather scales or quilted cloth rather than metal at all.
Byzantine cataphracts of the 10th century were drawn
from the ranks of the middle-class landowners through
the theme system, providing the Byzantine Empire with
a motivated and professional force that could support its
own wartime expenditures. The previously mentioned
term Clibanarii (possibly representing a distinct class of
cavalry from the cataphract) was brought to the fore in

the 10th and 11th centuries of the Byzantine Empire,

known in Byzantine Greek as Klibanophoros, which appeared to be a throwback to the super-heavy cavalry of
earlier antiquity. These cataphracts specialised in forming a wedge formation and penetrating enemy formations
to create gaps, enabling lighter troops to make a breakthrough. Alternatively, they were used to target the head
of the enemy force, typically a foreign emperor.
As with the original cataphracts, the Leonian/Nikephorian units seemed to have fallen out
of favour and use with their handlers, making their last,
recorded appearance in battle in 970 and the last record
of their existence in 1001, referred to as being posted
to garrison duty. If they had indeed disappeared, then it
is possible that they were revived once again during the
Komnenian restoration, a period of thorough nancial,
territorial and military reform that changed the Byzantine
army of previous ages, which is referred to separately as
the Komnenian army after the 12th century.[30] Emperor
Alexios I Komnenos (10811118) established a new
military force from the ground up, which was directly
responsible for transforming the aging Byzantine Empire
from one of the weakest periods in its existence into a
major economic and military power, akin to its existence
during the golden age of Justinian I. However, even in
this case, it seems that the cataphract was eventually
superseded by other types of heavy cavalry.
It is dicult to determine when exactly the cataphract saw
his nal day. After all, cataphracts and knights fullled
a roughly similar role on the medieval battleeld, and the
armored knight survived well into the early modern era of
Europe. The Byzantine army maintained units of heavily armored cavalrymen up until its nal years, mostly
in the form of Western European Latinikon mercenaries,
while neighbouring Bulgars, Serbs, Avars, Russian states,
Alans, Lithuanians, Khazars and other Eastern European
and Eurasian peoples emulated Byzantine military equipment.
As Western European metalwork became increasingly
sophisticated, the traditional image of the cataphracts
awe-inspiring might and presence quickly evaporated.
From the 15th century and onwards, chain mail, lamellar
armor, and scale armor seemed to fall out of favour with
Eastern noble cavalrymen as elaborate and robust plate
cuirasses arrived from the West; this, in combination with
the advent of early rearms, cannon and gunpowder, rendered the relatively thin and exible armor of cataphracts
obsolete. Despite these advances, the Byzantine army,
often unable to aord newer equipment en masse, was
left ill-equipped and forced to rely on its increasingly archaic military technology. The cataphract nally passed
into the pages of history with the Fall of Constantinople
on May 29, 1453, when the last nation to refer to its cavalrymen as cataphracts fell (see Decline of the Byzantine
Empire).

7.1

Cataphracts in East Asia

A Chinese terracotta gurine of a cataphract horse and rider,

created during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386534 AD)

that remain unclear. The use of cataphracts was then revived in the Liao, Western Xia, and Jin dynastiesthe
super-heavy cataphracts of the Xia and Jin were especially eective and were known as Iron Sparrowhawks
and Iron Pagodas respectively. The Song Empire also
developed cataphract units to counter those of the Liao,
Xia, and Jin, but the shortage of suitable grazing lands and
horse pastures in Song territory made the eective breeding and maintenance of Song cavalry far more dicult,
in addition to the Songs vulnerability to continual raids
by the emerging Mongol Empire for over two decades,
which eventually vanquished them in 1279 at the hands
of Kublai Khan. The Yuan dynasty, successors to the
Song, which were a continuation of the Mongolian Empire, seem to have all but forgotten the cataphract traditions of their predecessors, and the last remaining traces
of cataphracts in East Asia seems to have died with the
downfall of the Yuan in 1368.
Other East Asian cultures were also known to have used
cataphracts during a similar time period to the Chinese. Korean cataphracts reached their pinnacle in Koreas Three Kingdoms period. Meanwhile, the Tibetan
Empire used cataphracts as the elite assault force of its
armies for much of its history.

8 Related cavalry
In addition to ordinary cataphract types, the Byzantine
Empire sometimes elded a very heavy type of cavalry
known as a clibanarius, literally meaning boiler boy (pl.
clibanarii), but more properly translating into camp oven
bearer, a humorous reference to that fact that men encased in metal armor would almost certainly feel incredibly hot and perspire rapidly, much like an oven. The
clibinarii are vaguely attested in Eastern Roman sources,
but there is dispute over their actual role and dierence
from cataphracts in warfare.
The 5th-century Notitia Dignitatum mentions a specialist
unit of clibanarii known as the Equites Sagittarii Clibanarii - evidently a unit of heavily armored horse archers
Horses covered with scale armor are alluded to in the based on the heavy cavalry of contemporary Persian
ancient Chinese book of poetry, the Shi Jing dating be- armies.
tween the 7th to 10th centuries BChowever, these did
not cover the entire horse.[31] Comprehensive armor for An anonymous 6th-century Roman military treatise also
horses might have been used in China as early as the proposed one unusual, experimental unit of scythed charThree Kingdoms period. It was not until the early 4th iots with cataphract lancers mounted on the chariots
century, however, that cataphracts came into widespread horses, though there is no evidence that this unit ever mause among the Xianbei tribes of Inner Mongolia and terialised.
Liaoning, which led to the adoption of cataphracts by the Nations in the East occasionally elded cataphracts
Chinese armies during the Northern and Southern Dy- mounted on camels rather than on horses (the Romans
nasties era. Numerous burial seals, military gurines, also adopted this practice, calling camel mounted cavalmurals, and ocial reliefs from this period testify to the rymen dromedarii), with obvious benets for use in arid
great importance of armored cavalry in warfare. Later, regions, as well as the fact that the stench of the camels, if
the Sui Empire maintained the use of cataphracts, but the upwind, was a guaranteed way of panicking enemy cavuse of horse armor declined in the Tang Empire (becom- alry units that they came into contact with. Balanced
ing limited to ceremonial guards of honor) for reasons against this, however, is the relatively greater vulnerabili Vit heavy cavalry of the Trn Dynasty (12251400 AD)

10

11

REFERENCES

ity of camel-mounted units to caltrops, due to their softly [11] Rubin 1955, p. 266
padded soles on their feet, unlike the hardened hooves of
[12] Eadie 1967, p. 162
horses.
[13] Rubin 1955, pp. 269270

See also
Knight

[14] Eadie 1967, p. 163

[15] Eadie 1967, pp. 163f.

Heavy cavalry

[16] Perevalov 2002, p. 10

Lancer

[17] Campbell 1987, p. 25

Clibanarii

[18] Perevalov 2002, pp. 10.

Horses in warfare

[19] Eadie 1967, p. 166

Horse archer

[20] Rubin 1955, p. 276, fn. 2

Sassanid army
Byzantine army

[21] Eadie, John W. (1967). The Development of Roman

Mailed Cavalry. The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 57,
No. 1/2 (1967), pp. 161173.

Komnenian army

[22] Eadie 1967, p. 168

Late Roman army

[23] Eadie 1967, pp. 170f.

10

Footnotes

[1] Nell, Grant S. (1995) The Savaran: The Original Knights.

University of Oklahoma Press.
[2] Nikonorov, Valerii P. (1998) Cataphracti, Catafractarii
and Clibanarii: Another Look at the old problem of their
Identications. In Voennaia arkheologiia: Oruzhie i voennoe delo v istoricheskoi i sotsial.noi perspektive (Military
Archaeology: Weaponry and Warfare in the Historical
and Social Perspective). St. Petersburg:. pp. 131-138.
[3] Nicolle, David (1992) Romano-Byzantine Armies, 4th9th
Centuries. Osprey Publishing.
[4] Leo Diaconis, Historiae 4.3, 5.2, 8.9
[5] Mielczarek, Mariusz (1993) Cataphracti and Clibanarii.
Studies on the Heavy Armoured Cavalry of the Ancient
World, p. 14

[24] Ammianus Marcellinus, (353 AD) Roman Antiquities,

Book XXV pp. 477
[25] Ammianus Marcellinus, (353 AD) Roman Antiquities,
Boox XXV pp. 481
[26] Driel-Murray, C. van; Connolly, P. (1991). The Roman
cavalry saddle. Britannia 22, pp. 3350.
[27] Shahbazi, A. Sh. (2009). Sassanian Army.
[28] Usamah Ibn-Munquidh, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and
Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Usamah Ibn-Munquidh, Philip K. Hitti (trans.) (New Jersey:
Princeton), 1978. p. 69.
[29] Equestrian battle reliefs from Firuozabad Battle scenes
showing combat between Parthian and Sassanian cataphracts on horses with barding using lances.
[30] J. Birkenmeier in The development of the Komnenian
army: 1081-1180

[6] Robert Drews, The Coming of the Greeks: IndoEuropean Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East.,
Princeton University Press, Chariot Warfare. p. 61.

[31] Notes on Turquois in the East, Volume 13, Issues 12,

Berthold Laufer, s.n., 1914, p. 306

[7] Perevalov, S. M. (translated by M. E. Sharpe) (Spring

2002). The Sarmatian Lance and the Sarmatian HorseRiding Posture. Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia
41 (4): 721.

11 References

[8] Farrokh, Kaveh (2005). Sassanian Elite Cavalry, AD

224642. Osprey Publishing.
[9] Farrokh, Kaveh (2005). Sassanian elite cavalry AD 224
642. Oxford: Osprey. p. 4. ISBN 9781841767130. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
[10] Eadie 1967, pp. 161f.

Bivar, A. D. H. (1972), Cavalry Equipment and

Tactics on the Euphrates Frontier, Dumbarton
Oaks Papers 26: 271291, doi:10.2307/1291323,
JSTOR 1291323
Campbell, Brian (1987), Teach Yourself How to
Be a General, Journal of Roman Studies 77: 13
29, doi:10.2307/300572, JSTOR 300572

11
Eadie, John W. (1967), The Development of Roman Mailed Cavalry, Journal of Roman Studies
57 (1/2): 161173, doi:10.2307/299352, JSTOR
299352
Nikonorov, Valerii P. (1985a). The Parthian
Cataphracts.
Chetvertaia vsesoiuznaia shkola
molodykh vostokovedov. T. I. Moscow. pp. 6567.
Smith, William; et al. (1890). Cataphracti. A
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd
ed.). The text of this book is now in the public domain.
Nikonorov, Valerii P. (1985b). The Development of Horse Defensive Equipment in the Antique
Epoch. In Kruglikova, I. T. Zheleznyi vek Kavkaza,
Srednei Azii i Sibiri. Moscow: Nauka. pp. 3035.
Nikonorov, Valerii P. (1998).
Cataphracti,
Catafractarii and Clibanarii: Another Look at the
old problem of their Identications. Voennaia
arkheologiia: Oruzhie i voennoe delo v istoricheskoi i sotsial.noi perspektive (Military Archaeology:
Weaponry and Warfare in the Historical and Social
Perspective). St. Petersburg. pp. 131138.
Perevalov, S. M. (2002), The Sarmatian Lance
and the Sarmatian Horse-Riding Posture, Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia 41 (4): 721,
doi:10.2753/aae1061-195940047
Rubin, Berthold (1955), Die Entstehung der Kataphraktenreiterei im Lichte der chorezmischen Ausgrabungen, Historia 4: 264283
Warry, John Gibson (1980). Warfare in the Classical World: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons,
Warriors, and Warfare in the Ancient Civilisations of
Greece and Rome. New York: St. Martins Press.
Macdowall, Simon (1995). Late Roman Cavalryman, 236565 AD. Osprey Publishing.
Farrokh, Kaveh (2005). Sassanian Elite Cavalry,
AD 224642. Osprey Publishing.
Nell, Grant S. (1995). The Savaran: The Original
Knights. University of Oklahoma Press.
Marcellinus, Ammianus (353 AD). Roman Antiquities, Book XXV. p. 481. Check date values in: |date=
(help)

12

External links

Cataphracts and Siegecraft - Roman, Parthian and

Sasanid military organisation.
Image of Sarmatian armored horse detail on the Trajans column project at McMaster University

Third century AD grato of Parthian Cataphractus

The historical works of Ammianus Marcellinus

12

13

13
13.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Cataphract Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphract?oldid=683322690 Contributors: Vicki Rosenzweig, Panairjdde~enwiki,

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Andy Smith, Rich Farmbrough, Dbachmann, Aranel, CanisRufus, Gilgamesh he, Art LaPella, Duk, .:Ajvol:., Giraedata, La goutte de pluie,
Polylerus, Phyzome, Ynhockey, RainbowOfLight, Ghirlandajo, A D Monroe III, Dejvid, Woohookitty, Faithtear, Je3000, Yst, BD2412,
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Lavanda Brown, Nihlus1 and Anonymous: 134

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wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/028_Conrad_Cichorius%2C_Die_Reliefs_der_Traianss%C3%A4ule%2C_Tafel_XXVIII_
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of Damascus
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