The riders wore helmets, neck armor, and metal masks that left only their eyes unprotected. On the right flank, the Cataphracts were successful in driving back the Romans, but eventually had to flee when the rest of the battle line crumbled.Īccording to Heliodorus, Cataphract riders were men of impressive size and physique. According to Livy, a number of Cataphracts were killed being unable to escape due to their heavy armor. On the left flank, the Cataphracts were routed by much lighter cavalry of the Romans. However, the Seleucids were defeated in this decisive encounter. At Magnesia, Livy recounts that the Seleucids fielded 3000 Cataphracts, together with 1000 men of the King’s Agema bodyguard who wore similar armor. Seleucid cataphracts first appeared in the battles of Panion (200 BC, against the Ptolemaics) and Magnesia (188 BC, against the Romans). (It should be noted that in the picture above, a lot of artistic imagination is used the equipment of Seleucid cataphracts is mostly speculation).
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It is believed that the Seleucid king Antiochus brought them into his army after his campaigns against the Bactrians, whose cavalry must have been successors to those depicted in the paintings found in Khwarezm. It was often used in conjunction with the word “horse,” such as in κατάφρακτος ίππος, or cataphracti equites.Īfter the Macedonians expanded into central Asia, the Seleucids, who come to rule the western territories of Alexander’s conquests, introduced the Cataphract into their army. The term “cataphract” was used both as an adjective and as a noun. For this reason, the term cataphract in works such as Plutarch's has been translated by some scholars as simply "mailed cavalry," even though modern reintrepretation of these horsemen often extends the definition to include horsemen of a variety of different styles of armor, including lamellar and scale armor. On the other hand, it should be noted that the term cataphract, sometimes given as catafract, originates from a Greek word describing mailed armor and literally does not describe the amount of armor worn. The picture above is a possible interpretation of "Cataphract" equiptment: unlike the Companion cavalry (such as those of Alexander the Great), the cataphract is often described to wear an armored mask, along with arm and leg armor. While heavy cavalry was common, the term cataphract (Latin cataphractus, Greek κατάφρακτος) is conventionally used to describe only the heaviest cavalry, particularly those completely armored and often with horse armor, as opposed to the cavalry armored with only a curiass. Issues that will be discussed include the use of the term cataphract, recorded descriptions of Cataphracts as well as similar units in battles, and finally, some of the ambiguousness presented by ancient sources that has led to controversy among modern readers.
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While the use of heavy cavalry was widespread throughout the ancient world, this article will focus on their usage in the Mediterranean area and Western Asia from 200 BC to 500 A.D.
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The term has also been applied by modern authors to describe apparently similar cavalry used by other peoples of western, central, and eastern Asia, even though the use of this term in ancient sources was originally limited to the nations described above.
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Modern interpretation of these units typically takes the form of warriors armored spectacularly from head to toe, equipped with full horse armor and armed with a long pike and other weapons. In the ancient world, the term cataphractwas used by Greek and Roman sources to describe heavily armored cavalry used by Seleucid, Parthian, Sassanid, and Roman armies.