02-22-2008, 03:14 PM
The more I read about Roman heavy cavalry, even Roman cavalry in general, the more I get confused. My question is when were Cataphratarii (armoured horse-rider) and Clibanarii (both horse and rider armoured) introduced into the Roman army? And when horse-archers?
I consulted four sources so far (see below). My summary from what I take: Heavy cavalry, that is the use of riders with metal armour, originally developed in two different places, both times as a reaction of sedentary and urban cultures against nomad light cavalry:
1. In Assyria, armoured riders armed with pikes appear as early as the 8th century BC. and the following century saw the introduction of hybrid cavalrymen equipped with both pike and bow (Eadie 161).
2. In the 6th century BC, the Massageto-Chorasmian peoples developed a "prototype cataphract" who, unlike its Assyrian counterpart, not only wore a coat of mail, but also partially protected his stead with "metal plates" (Eadie 162).
The Assyrian and the Chorasmian heavy cavalry was apparently developed independently, and both traditions remained rather separate phenomena in the following centuries as the use of armoured riders spread westward.
The Roman army, as the hypothesis goes, draw from both sources.: Via the Sarmatians who had copied the Chorasmian model, the Romans adopted the lancer (contarius) perhaps under Vespasian, and the armoured lancer (cataphractarius) under Hadrian (Eadie 173). The horse-archer (sagittaria equitata), known for centuries by Roman enemies in the east, appeared as late as Vespasian's reign (Eadie 173).
The clibanarius, though, was probably added to the Roman cavalry force due to the Sassanid Persian example in the 4th century (Eadie 173).
Now, if the Roman only introduced mounted archers and lancers as late as 70 AD, what weapons did then the Republic cavalry use, beginning with the equites of the Etruscan age? Only swords? And what type of armour did, say, the Roman cavalry in the Second Punic War use? Polybios VI 25.3 already records armoured Roman cavalrymen.
As for the cataphractarii, why were they employed so late by the Romans? The common argument is here that the Romans had no incentive to do so, because in their first two major encounters, the legion actually performed very well against eastern cataphracts (Battle of Magnesia, 188 BC, and of Tigranokerta, 69 BC). But after Carrhae, it must have become increasingly obvious that cavalry in general, and cataphracts in particular, could prove valuable in the eastern plains. Still, the Romans began to employ cataphracts in numbers only as late as the third century AD (at least according to my 30-40 year old sources).
And for the Clibanarii, the first recorded use occurred as late as 312 AD in the battle of Constantine against Maxentius (Eadie 171). At that time, the Romans had faced armoured horses and riders for three and a half centuries, going by a depiction in Warry's Warfare ("Parthian cataphract around 50 BC", p. 154). That raises another question of mine, that of terminology. Why does Warry call the armoured member of Cyrus the Younger's bodyguard (p. 59) and the Seleucids' "armoured cavalryman" (p. 95) not cataphract, too, as both essentially were? In my view the former's body and horse amour doesn't look much less comprehensive than that of the much later "Sassanid noble, ca. AD 450" (p. 210) who is a clibanarii with partial horse armour.
So, in a nutshell, when were the three different cavalry types introduced into the Roman army, why did this take place so comparatively late and why is the term 'cataphract' not applied universally to all ancient armoured riders alike? Shouldn't we rather say that the Greeks (Seleucids) employed them as early as 200 BC?
Sources:
A.D.H. Bivar (1972): Cavalry Equipment and Tactics on the Euphrates Frontier, DOP
John Eadie (1967): The Development of Roman Mailed Cavalry
Berthold Rubin (1955): Die Entstehung der Kataphraktenreiterei im Lichte der chorezmischen Ausgrabungen
John Warry: Warfare in the Classical World
I consulted four sources so far (see below). My summary from what I take: Heavy cavalry, that is the use of riders with metal armour, originally developed in two different places, both times as a reaction of sedentary and urban cultures against nomad light cavalry:
1. In Assyria, armoured riders armed with pikes appear as early as the 8th century BC. and the following century saw the introduction of hybrid cavalrymen equipped with both pike and bow (Eadie 161).
2. In the 6th century BC, the Massageto-Chorasmian peoples developed a "prototype cataphract" who, unlike its Assyrian counterpart, not only wore a coat of mail, but also partially protected his stead with "metal plates" (Eadie 162).
The Assyrian and the Chorasmian heavy cavalry was apparently developed independently, and both traditions remained rather separate phenomena in the following centuries as the use of armoured riders spread westward.
The Roman army, as the hypothesis goes, draw from both sources.: Via the Sarmatians who had copied the Chorasmian model, the Romans adopted the lancer (contarius) perhaps under Vespasian, and the armoured lancer (cataphractarius) under Hadrian (Eadie 173). The horse-archer (sagittaria equitata), known for centuries by Roman enemies in the east, appeared as late as Vespasian's reign (Eadie 173).
The clibanarius, though, was probably added to the Roman cavalry force due to the Sassanid Persian example in the 4th century (Eadie 173).
Now, if the Roman only introduced mounted archers and lancers as late as 70 AD, what weapons did then the Republic cavalry use, beginning with the equites of the Etruscan age? Only swords? And what type of armour did, say, the Roman cavalry in the Second Punic War use? Polybios VI 25.3 already records armoured Roman cavalrymen.
As for the cataphractarii, why were they employed so late by the Romans? The common argument is here that the Romans had no incentive to do so, because in their first two major encounters, the legion actually performed very well against eastern cataphracts (Battle of Magnesia, 188 BC, and of Tigranokerta, 69 BC). But after Carrhae, it must have become increasingly obvious that cavalry in general, and cataphracts in particular, could prove valuable in the eastern plains. Still, the Romans began to employ cataphracts in numbers only as late as the third century AD (at least according to my 30-40 year old sources).
And for the Clibanarii, the first recorded use occurred as late as 312 AD in the battle of Constantine against Maxentius (Eadie 171). At that time, the Romans had faced armoured horses and riders for three and a half centuries, going by a depiction in Warry's Warfare ("Parthian cataphract around 50 BC", p. 154). That raises another question of mine, that of terminology. Why does Warry call the armoured member of Cyrus the Younger's bodyguard (p. 59) and the Seleucids' "armoured cavalryman" (p. 95) not cataphract, too, as both essentially were? In my view the former's body and horse amour doesn't look much less comprehensive than that of the much later "Sassanid noble, ca. AD 450" (p. 210) who is a clibanarii with partial horse armour.
So, in a nutshell, when were the three different cavalry types introduced into the Roman army, why did this take place so comparatively late and why is the term 'cataphract' not applied universally to all ancient armoured riders alike? Shouldn't we rather say that the Greeks (Seleucids) employed them as early as 200 BC?
Sources:
A.D.H. Bivar (1972): Cavalry Equipment and Tactics on the Euphrates Frontier, DOP
John Eadie (1967): The Development of Roman Mailed Cavalry
Berthold Rubin (1955): Die Entstehung der Kataphraktenreiterei im Lichte der chorezmischen Ausgrabungen
John Warry: Warfare in the Classical World
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
