Roman Leather Lamellae Scales from Karanis, Egypt

[ValentinianVictrix]

I stand corrected, there is no evidence of them being Sarmatian:

http://www.romanarmytalk.com/17-roman-mi...=15#346975

However, I would imagine the practice was adopted from the Sarmatians and Parthians.

I have a suspicion that the claims of cataphract introduction into Roman service via Parthians stems from the pen of Phil Barker of Wargames Research Group fame. I believe he made this claim in his book Armies and Enemies of Ancient Rome and also in some of his Ancient Wargames Rules army lists that deal with the Middle Imperial and Late Imperial Roman armies. He states that Parthian nobles, fleeing from Persia when the Sasanids ousted the Parthian rulers, were responsible for at least the initial creation of the Cataphract corps in Roman service. I have asked Phil a number of times where he obtained the references for this without much success. I believe its possibly due to some rather vague references to Parthians coming over to the Romans within both the Scriptores Historiae Augustae and Zosimus.