06-08-2013, 04:25 PM
Having read it I can only recommend a reading of Ann Hyland's "Equus - the Horse in the Roman World", which contains some very useful information.
It certainly gives a much greater understanding of the logistic difficulties of breeding, supplying, training and feeding cavalry as opposed to infantry. Even without losses the likely replacement rate is ~5x that for soldiers.
Gaining that understanding has certainly helped and drawn me to the conclusion that one reason that the proportion of cavalry in the 'West' is lower than that for the Steppe peoples and Eastern empires is that they just weren't as common. The Steppe Nomads lived for their horses and they were a part of their nomadic life, the Parthians and the Sassanids (et al) used theirs due to the vast distances they had to travel.
The other reasons are well mentioned above - Graeco-Roman armies are infantry-centric and cavalry is in a supporting role. An exception would be the Heavier shock cavalry of Alexander, which could be used to exploit weaknesses and the low morale of many of the conscripted infantry they faced. Even the Cataphract types were mainly used to exploit similar weaknesses after casualties and disruption was already caused.
Infantry (and still true today) holds ground and that's principally what the Romans did. Cavalry is more mobile and thus why the Byzantine's moved towards this as that's also the raiding style of many of their enemies; but their armies often still contained a serious proportion of infantry - they're just less glamorous.
It certainly gives a much greater understanding of the logistic difficulties of breeding, supplying, training and feeding cavalry as opposed to infantry. Even without losses the likely replacement rate is ~5x that for soldiers.
Gaining that understanding has certainly helped and drawn me to the conclusion that one reason that the proportion of cavalry in the 'West' is lower than that for the Steppe peoples and Eastern empires is that they just weren't as common. The Steppe Nomads lived for their horses and they were a part of their nomadic life, the Parthians and the Sassanids (et al) used theirs due to the vast distances they had to travel.
The other reasons are well mentioned above - Graeco-Roman armies are infantry-centric and cavalry is in a supporting role. An exception would be the Heavier shock cavalry of Alexander, which could be used to exploit weaknesses and the low morale of many of the conscripted infantry they faced. Even the Cataphract types were mainly used to exploit similar weaknesses after casualties and disruption was already caused.
Infantry (and still true today) holds ground and that's principally what the Romans did. Cavalry is more mobile and thus why the Byzantine's moved towards this as that's also the raiding style of many of their enemies; but their armies often still contained a serious proportion of infantry - they're just less glamorous.
