How Effective were Spears Against Cavalry?

[Domen]

I did not ignore Plutarch - I just interpreted what he writes in my way.

And even if I am to believe in Plutarch's interpretation, then I still say that the main reason why the cataphracts stopped that charge, was because they saw how deep the Roman formation was - rather than seing some abstract "firmness", which is a state of mind not some physical parameter.

Anyway - Plutarch's account of the battle and that of Dio don't contradict each other.

There could be some "feigned" charges and some other "real" charges.

Both types of charges were beneficial for the Parthian army.

"Feigned" charges were causing the Romans altering their formation and thus becoming more vulnerable to arrows of Parthian horse archers (and inversely - being forced by rains of Parthian arrows to adopt proper defensive formations against them, was making the Roman troops more vulnerable to devastating charges of cataphracts, because they could not use their weapons as efficiently as normally, while being deployed in a dense enough formation to protect themselves from arrows).

"Real" charges were causing exactly all the same effects as "feigned" ones, plus were also actually inflicting heavy casualties upon Roman troops (while "feigned" charges were not).

So there were both advantages and disadvantages of both kinds of charges.

"Real" charges could be devastating and smash Roman infantry lines. But - on the other hand - cataphracts could also suffer some casualties while carrying out such charges.

"Feigned" charges were not - in itself - causing losses to either side, but were preparing better ground for horse archers to inflict losses, as they were forcing the Romans to alter their formation - since one formation was good to fight vs heavy cavalry and a different one to protect from arrows.

There was also an approach to Roman squares, followed by a feigned retreat - described by Plutarch. That subsequent feigned retreat (after approaching the Roman square) could - and in fact did - encourage the Romans to carry out a counterattack, which lured them into a rain of arrows and made them more vulnerable to all kinds of attacks than they were while deployed in a defensive position.

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BTW - proportion of cataphracts to horse archers at Carrhae (10/90), if true, was not typical.

In most battles that proportion was 50/50 or anything between 50/50 and 10/90.

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Horse archers were also good for "softening" enemy units before cataphracts charged them. And by "softening" I do not mean "causing them to disperse or to loose cohesion". By "softening", I mean inflicting wounds upon many Roman soldiers. Because this is what arrows do - the very nature of arrows is that they are more efficient in causing wounds than in killing. In other words - a much bigger proportion of all soldiers hit by enemy arrows, were soldiers who were wounded, rather than killed. Arrows were not good in inflicting mortal wounds - vast majority of wounds and injuries inflicted by arrows, were not instantly mortal.* Dio confirms this regarding Carrhae. He writes:

"(...) [Arrows] flew into their eyes and pierced their hands and all the other parts of their body and, penetrating their armour, deprived them of their protection and compelled them to expose themselves to each new missile. Thus, while a man was guarding against arrows or pulling out one that had stuck fast he received more wounds, one after another. Consequently it was impracticable for them to move, and impracticable to remain at rest. Neither course afforded them safety.** (...)"

** Also the constant threat of getting charged by cataphracts contributed to that impracticability.

Source: Dio, 40.22.

"(...) they were continually turning this way and that and were forced to face the enemy that was wounding them at the time (...)"

Source: Dio, 40.23.

As you can see these excerpts from Dio clearly suggest, that many Romans suffered multiple wounds from Parthian arrows - but still continued to live and to stand firm and fight.

However, it is obvious that an injured man is not as efficient in combat as a fresh man. When some cohort of 500 includes 200 injured soldiers, they are less efficient than a cohort of 500 fresh soldiers. This means they are "softened" - thus an easier target for the cataphracts to charge and smash.

* (but of course in the age when antibiotic drugs were unknown, many of wounded soldiers were later dying of their wounds due to infection - days or weeks after the battle).

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The fact that charges of Parthian and Sassanid cataphracts were very efficient against Roman infantry is also confirmed by all of the changes in Roman military organization, equipment and tactics introduced as the result of very unpleasant experiences from wars against Parthian & Sassanid Persia.

The peak of Persian military superiority over Rome was perhaps the reign of Shapur I the Great.

After Shapur, Rome got the upper hand again, but only thanks to a number of military reforms.

In late 3rd century AD the Romans introduced a new, improved defensive battle array - designed specifically to defend against Sassanid cavalry attacks -, more tightened and combining the advantages of phalanx and testudo, called fulcum. Apart from introducing fulcum formation, the Romans started to equip their infantry with long anti-cavalry spears en masse. They also copied Persian-style equipment - that's how units of heavy cataphracts and clibanarii cavalry appeared in the Roman army.

Aurelian also introduced many new tactics to deal with Sassanid cataphracts - just to mention feigned retreat of his light cavalry in order to disperse the cataphracts during the chase and destroy the cohesion of their charging formation. Or the specially trained units of infantry macemen, equipped with heavy iron-covered maces capable of crushing armor used by cataphracts and their horses.

All of this tells us that the Romans took Persian cataphracts very seriously - unlike some users on this forum, who try to claim that it was enough to "show them firmness" to stop the charge...

Fortunately for the Roman commanders and soldiers whose lifes depended on them, they were not dismissing the power of cataphract charges at all - unlike some modern researchers.

Already Ancient Roman sources admitted, that the most difficult to deal with of all enemies of Rome in history, were not Samnites, not Carthaginians, not Spanish tribes - but Persians.

And while other enemies of Rome used archers or horse archers on massive scale as well (just to mention the Huns), Persians combined elite horse archers with elite heavy cavalry.

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The efficiency of armor-smashing maces or mauls against cavalry - if used in sufficient number and way (they had to be numerically superior in order to surround cavalry - and it was also required to engage that cavalry in close, prolonged, "stationary" melee combat) was confirmed in many cases.

In the battle of Vienna in 1683 a reconnaissance in force carried out by one squadron of Winged Hussars (in order to examine the terrain before the subsequent massive charge of 20,000 cavalry), was repulsed in melee by vastly numerically superior Turkish infantry equipped with maces.

The squadron of hussars which did it, had 149 horsemen. Even though it was so small, Turkish forces avoided head-on confrontation - Turkish cavalry stepped aside or ran away backwards before the charging banner. The Polish unit penetrated deeply into the Turkish lines - up to the camp of their commander. But there it was stopped. The Turks encircled the Polish squadron from all sides, hammering the riders and their horses with large battle mauls, maces and battle axes:

A Turkish account describes it as follows:

"The first [Polish] unit, clad in iron, attacked the tent of the illustrious Serdar master [Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha]. Faced them and engaged them in combat levands [personal guard units] of the Serdar master under command of a sercheshmesh, as well as his palace and court aghas. Giaours [Christian soldiers] however, were all clad in iron, so saber was not useful there, but heroes experienced in battles [Turkish soldiers] were not disconcerted by this at all. Each of them had a maul, a mace or an axe, so they started to hammer giaours in heads, faces and arms, while those who didn't have such weapons, tried to rip their horses with sabers. This way with grace of Allah they were forced to retreat, and most of them were killed or wounded."

The Polish squadron lost 12 killed NCOs (companions) and 23-24 killed enlisted men (in total 35-36 out of 149) in this charge, as king Sobieski reported. No other Polish cavalry unit suffered so heavy losses in the battle of Vienna as this squadron in its "suicidal" charge. It is easy for a numerically superior force to surround and maul-to-death in melee a tiny force of 149 men - but almost impossible to outflank and encircle a cavalry force of many thousands (at Vienna - 20,000), charging in a wide line.

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BTW - archaeological finds from Dura Europos confirm that in combat against Persian armies, the Romans tried to rely mostly on auxiliary infantry units equipped with anti-cavalry spears and with good bows or slings, rather than on legionaries - who at that time had no any melee spears.

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It should be noted, that also Seleucid cataphracts were victorious while frontally charging Roman infantry lines at Magnesia in 190 BC - I will quote a post written by a user on another forum:

Antiochos III led 3000 cataphracts and the cavalry Agema (1000) on his right wing in a charge that managed to break one of the four legions opposing him. In Livy's account of the battle it was actually the Latin Ala (not really a Roman legion) in the extreme left of the Roman battle line that Antiochos cavalry outflanked and routed. That would have required the Seleucid cavalry moving diagonally across the whole frontage of both the Roman legion and the Latin Ala (they were not posted in the extreme right as was typical) However, the battle's account in Justin says explicitly that it was the Roman legion right in front the Seleucid cavalry that was routed and that the event was considered a great disgrace, even if the Romans were the eventual victors of the battle. A third account by Appian speaks of the Seleucid king "breaking through the Roman phalanx" which is not very detailed, but seems to agree better with Justin than with Livy. And we know that Livy was not above masking anything that migh reflect poorly on anything Roman...

[Domen]

Horse archers were also good for "softening" enemy units before cataphracts charged them.

And by "softening" I do not mean "causing them to disperse or to lose cohesion".

By "softening", I mean inflicting wounds on many Roman soldiers. Because this is what arrows do - the very nature of arrows is that they are more efficient in causing wounds than in killing. In other words - a much bigger proportion of all soldiers hit by enemy arrows, are soldiers who are wounded, rather than killed. Arrows are not good in inflicting mortal wounds - vast majority of wounds and injuries inflicted by arrows, are not instantly mortal.*

This is also what Cassius Dio confirms regarding Carrhae. He writes:

"The missiles falling thick upon them from all sides at once struck down many by a mortal blow, rendered many useless for battle, and caused distress to all. They flew into their eyes and pierced their hands and all the other parts of their body and, penetrating their armour, deprived them of their protection and compelled them to expose themselves to each new missile. Thus, while a man was guarding against arrows or pulling out one that had stuck fast he received more wounds, one after another. Consequently it was impracticable for them to move, and impracticable to remain at rest. Neither course afforded them safety but each was fraught with destruction, the one because it was out of their power, and the other because they were then more easily wounded."

As you can see this excerpt from Dio clearly suggests, that many Romans suffered multiple wounds from Parthian arrows - but still continued to live and to stand firm and fight.

However, it is obvious that an injured man is not as efficient in combat as a fresh man. When some cohort of 500 includes 150 injured soldiers, they are less efficient than a cohort of 500 fresh soldiers. This means they are "softened" - thus an easier target for cataphracts.

* (but of course in the age when antibiotic drugs were unknown, many of wounded soldiers were later dying of their wounds due to infection - days or weeks after the battle).
"

[koechlyruestow]

Hello Peter,

It seems to me that Cassius Dio, reporting on the clashes between the Romans and the Parthians after Carrhae, describes Roman infantry charging Parthian cavalry, not the other way around (48.39.1-40 5, 49.20.1-4), wouldn't you agree?

Roman infantry equipped with maces? You are not by any chance referring to our rather fruity source Nazarius, who describes cataphracti so heavilly armoured that, as soon as they commence their charge, they are like a heavy cart pushed downhil, unable to turn or change direction, so that even an entire formation of infantry can simply step aside to let them pass? Or is there another source that is perhaps a little less in flagrant contradiction with common sense? (I do not ignore Nazarius, I just interpret what he writes in my way :whistle: )

I picked up Southern and Dixon, The Late Roman Army, but I could not find any maces there either, not in descriptions and not among their archeological data.

And as you pointed out yourself, those Turks were horsemen, not infantry. They were not specially trained mace-men, the Turkish horsemen where horse archers, equiped with bow, lance, sword, mace or battle-axe, and short sword or dagger. Unlike the Polish Hussars seem to have done, when they charged, they threw away their lance, hung their bow on their arm and drew sword, mace or battle axe.

I agree with you in your beef with Macedon about medieval infantry, there is far too much idealising of ancient infantry going on. However, a "feigned" charge has a single, specific use? To group infantry close together so that they may better serve as a target for archery? Is it so inconceivable to you that a manoeuvre on the battle field is not executed according to a plan, but simply to see what happens (Friedrich, Napoleon)?

Let's make a charge towards them and see what happens. If they run, good, then we drive them in. If they stay in formation, good, then we ply our bows. Actual intention can simply be inferred by Plutarchus from the fact that most cavalry operates this way, whether Gallic, Roman or Parthian.

[Domen]

Roman infantry equipped with maces? (...) You are not by any chance referring to our rather fruity source Nazarius?

No - I am referring to Zosimos ("Historia Nova"):

"(...) Finding the Palmyrene army drawn up before Emisa, amounting to seventy thousand men, consisting of Palmyrenes and their allies, he opposed to them the Dalmatian cavalry, the Moesians and Pannonians, and the Celtic legions of Noricum and Rhaetia, and besides these the choicest of the imperial regiment selected man by man, the Mauritanian horse, the Tyaneans, the Mesopotamians, the Syrians, the Phoenicians, and the Palestinians, all men of acknowledged valour; the Palestinians besides other arms wielding clubs and staves. At the commencement of the engagement, the Roman cavalry receded, lest the Palmyrenes, who exceeded them in number, and were better horsemen, should by some stratagem surround the Roman army. But the Palmyrene cavalry pursued them so fiercely, though their ranks were broken, that the event was quite contrary to the expectation of the Roman cavalry. For they were pursued by an enemy much their superior in strength, and therefore most of them fell. The foot had to bear the brunt of the action. Observing that the Palmyrenes had broken their ranks when the horse commenced their pursuit, they wheeled about, and attacked them while they were scattered and out of order. Upon which many were killed, because the one side fought with the usual weapons, while those of Palestine brought clubs and staves against coats of mail made of iron and brass. The Palmyrenes therefore ran away with the utmost precipitation, and in their flight trod each other to pieces, as if the enemy did not make sufficient slaughter; the field was filled with dead men and horses, whilst the few that could escape took refuge in the city. (...)"

So we have Palestinian foot in Roman service equipped with maces.

Check Zosimos here - page 10:

http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03...29,_EN.pdf

But maybe Nazarius also mentions such infantry with maces - I did not check him.

Cassius Dio reporting on the clashes between the Romans and the Parthians after Carrhae

How is this relevant to what Cassius Dio wrote about the clashes during Carrhae?

describes Roman infantry charging Parthian cavalry, not the other way around (48.39.1-40 5, 49.20.1-4), wouldn't you agree?

I must check this - but why not. Swiss pikemen were also reported charging (attacking while moving forward towards them) cavalry on many occasions - so were the Scottish highlanders at Bannockburn, who charged the English cavalry while it was slowly crossing the river in swampy terrain.

However - once again - how is this relevant to what happened at Carrhae?

At Carrhae cataphracts charged Roman infantry - in some other battle it could be inversely.

So what is exactly your point here?

However, a "feigned" charge has a single, specific use?

Did you read my post? I described why both feigned and real charges were useful at Carrhae.

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And as you pointed out yourself, those Turks were horsemen, not infantry.

Please don't tell me what I pointed out myself, because I know best what was my point... :whistle:

I didn't write anything like this.

I wrote that the Turkish cavalry avoided confrontation and stepped aside or escaped. This isn't surprising, considering that the winged hussars were superior to any other cavalry at that time.

After the Turkish cavalry stepped aside, hussars continued to charge towards the Turkish camp.

What confronted the hussars (not before they reached the very Turkish camp, though) was infantry - personal guard units of the Turkish Grand Vizier, which I described, were all footmen. In close combat between the tents of the Turkish camp, hussars got surrounded and repulsed by infantry.

They were not specially trained mace-men, the Turkish horsemen where horse archers

We are talking about the Ottoman Turks in year 1683. At that time they had both heavy and light cavalry. Times of the bulk of Turkish cavalry being archers (around 1070) were long gone.

At that time Turks relied mostly on heavy and medium cavalry (both regular formations and feudal levy), while their allies (like Crimean Tatars) provided light cavalry for their campaigns.

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who describes cataphracti so heavilly armoured that, as soon as they commence their charge, they are like a heavy cart pushed downhil, unable to turn or change direction, so that even an entire formation of infantry can simply step aside to let them pass?

This is not about armor, but rather training. A poorly trained cavalry unit could indeed be unable to change direction while already charging at high speed. Many primary sources tell us how important part of cavalry training were exercises in changing direction by entire unit, while it was moving very fast.

The ability of the entire formation to change direction, is something different than the ability of one horse to change direction. It requires unit training to master this kind of maneuver.

[Marja]

It's a 19th-century English translation.

For whatever reason, these sometimes describe spears as staves. And they may be describing clubs as clubs, but they may be describing something else entirely.

[Renatus]

It's a 19th-century English translation.

For whatever reason, these sometimes describe spears as staves. And they may be describing clubs as clubs, but they may be describing something else entirely.

Ridley's 1982 translation refers to the Palestinians being armed with clubs and maces (Zos., 1. 52. 4; 1. 53. 2).

But maybe Nazarius also mentions such infantry with maces - I did not check him.

Nazarius speaks of Constantine's men assailing Maxentius' catafracti equites with "clubs equipped with heavy iron knobs" (Naz., Pan. Const., 24. 3).

[Domen]

Thanks Renatus for quoting what Nazarius writes about those macemen - so we already have two sources confirming the fact that such infantry was used in combats against armored cavalry.

To group infantry close together so that they may better serve as a target for archery?

Uhm, so I suppose that testudo (and other formations which used shields kept close to each other in order to protect from arrows) was used to "make infantry a better target" for archery... ??? :whistle:

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Regarding both charges into close ordered infantry and using blunt weapons against cavalry:

Czech Hussites used mobile wagon forts and war flails against cavalry to great effect - but cavalry was actually recorded charging their squares of wagon forts and even smashing some of their wagons.

For example in the battle of Sudomer 400 Czech Hussites inside 12 wagons (deployed in a square formation as a wagon fort) repulsed 2000 heavy cavalry, but also suffered heavy casualties in the process - including at least 3 of their wagons destroyed, 30 men captured and many more killed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_S...4%9B%C5%99

As I already pointed out many times before, field fortications were very useful vs cavalry. And Sudomer is another example which confirms this (in this case wagons were used as fortifications):

The Battle of Sudomĕř was fought on 25 March, 1420

(...)

The Battle of Sudomĕř began after Hussite forces which had taken up temporary fortifications on the plains were found by Royalist forces, who closed in for an attack. The Hussites were greatly outnumbered 5 to 1, and initially hoisted the white flag, but when the Royalists refused to accept their surrender the battle truly began.

Though outnumbered and comparatively ill-equipped, facing heavily armoured knights, the Hussites had fortified their surroundings ingeniously. Their flank was protected by war wagons loaded with arquebusiers, and many large ponds and marshy areas surrounded the Hussite infantry - ground which the Royalist Cavalry could not hope to cross.

One thousand Johannites from Strakonice led by Jindřich of Hradec - killed in battle - attacked war wagons placed on a slim dam, with huge casualties but no success. After that, another thousand Royalist cavalrymen, led by Peter von Konopischt of Sternberg - killed in the Battle of Vítkov Hill later that year - rushed a weakly held side of the Hussite formation, but were mired in marshy ground. They dismounted in order to progress, but soon found themselves mired once more. Following this, the Hussite light infantry equipped with flails were able to easily finish the cavalrymen.

The battle ended with the advance of night and fog, during which Žižka and the Hussite forces were able to escape. Though the Catholic Royalists were not entirely defeated, the fact the Hussites were able to inflict such heavy casualties with so few men, and then escape soundly proved to be a great victory. Only 400 hussites - farmers and townsmen, including women and children - beat the 2,000-strong force of heavily armoured cavalry. Hussite General, Jan Žižka, through superior knowledge of tactics and terrain, along with the highly effective deployment of vozová hradba (wagon fort) strategies, won the day.

(...)

Casualties and losses:

Hussites - Heavy, at least 3 wagons destroyed, 30 captured

Catholics - Heavy

Here information regarding the Hussite tactics of using wagon forts as fighting platforms:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/matthaywood/m...e%20Wagons

The Wagons

To successfully counter the large numbers of Knights and better equipped infantry the Hussites would face Zizka turned to the humble haulage wagon. From these wagons Zizka created a method of rapidly deploying a defensive wagon laager, in essence a mobile fort. A similar structure was used at the battle of Tannenberg by the Polish for protecting their camp and baggage. From this Wagenberg or Tabor the lightly armoured Hussites would be better equipped to fend off their opponents. Having established the basic structure Zizka further refined the process by creating the Warwagon and other specialised equipment, See warwagons for the details on the differing types of wagons.

The basic unit of the Hussite army was the wagon. Sources either quote 10 or 20 as the standard crew for a wagon. Certainly German ordinaces of the era put the required crew at 20 'after the Hussite fashion'. This is usually broken down as 2 armed drivers, 2 handgunners, 6 crossbowmen, 4 flailmen, 4 halberdiers and 2 pavisiers. The wagons were organised in a basic tactical group of ten.The tactical groups of wagons were assigned to a combat line, commanded by a Zeilmeistern (line master). The number of wagons per combat line was either 50 or 100 presumably the varience depended on the size of the army. See the warwagon pages for additional information on Hussite wagons.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/matthaywood/m...20Hussites

The Tabor battle wagons of the Hussites

The Hussites developed wagons specifically for the open battlefield and these became known by the term Tabor in the Christian sources of the time and as Tabur by the Ottoman Turks. Tabor was also used to discribe the defensive laagers built from the individual wagons. For more details on the Hussite wars see the Hussite pages. The term tabor has several possible origins. The commonly held origin is that it comes from the biblical name Mount Tabor, which was the name the Hussites gave several of their Meeting places in Bohemia, One later become the town of Tabor. The second origin, which I find more persuasive is it comes from the Czech word Tabor meaning camp. The associations with a camp wagon are obvious and these wagons formed the initial battle wagons of the Hussites. There is also the battle of Sudomer in 1420, which was one of the first conflicts in the crusades against the Hussites. This battle is also called the battle of the Tabor as Jan Zizka defended a wagon square against a vastly superior force of Royalist Cavalry. This battle predates the founding of the fortress (a pre-existing ruined castle) and town of Tabor whose name, I believe also being chosen on its founding.

Pictures showing Hussite wagon forts:











And a movie depiction of the battle of Sudomer (Czech historical movie "Jan Zizka", 1955):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpaeyIbk8N8

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Of course the battle of Sudomer was a relatively small-scale battle, with just 12 war wagons.

In some battles of the Hussite Wars, both sides used even hundreds or thousands of war wagons.

For example in the battle of Usti (16 June 1426) the Hussites had around 500 war wagons.

[Nathan Ross]

our rather fruity source Nazarius, who describes cataphracti so heavilly armoured that, as soon as they commence their charge, they are like a heavy cart pushed downhil, unable to turn or change direction, so that even an entire formation of infantry can simply step aside to let them pass?

Nazarius, like most panegyricists, is pretty fruity - it's the nature of the form. I think this same panegyric has the odd anecdote about Constantine forging the weapons of the defenders of Turin into shackles to hold them prisoner... (EDIT - actually that's Panegyric XII...)

However, there's a difference between a poetic metaphor (which is how I would read the swords-into-shackles idea) and an attempt at a battle description: when the orator is addressing the emperor who commanded in that battle, and presumably devised the tactic, and his commanders then outright invention would perhaps not work so well. So we shouldn't dismiss Nazarius so quickly.

Exaggeration would probably be more likely - Nazarius wants to explain how Constantine's men defeated the fearsome armoured cavalry of Maxentius, and stress Constantine's own tactical genius. It's possible that this detail is intended to cover up a mistake, or turn a near-defeat into a planned victory. Perhaps the clibanarii did indeed break through the infantry line, but were held by a reserve of lighter troops and encircled?

But there's still the possibility that things actually happened more or less as Nazarius implies. Creating a deliberate weak point in the line with a thin screen of troops would be risky, and would involve some quite skillful rapid maneuvering, but would not be outside the realms of possibility. If the clibanarii were advancing in close formation at moderate speed, they may indeed have found it difficult to hold back or turn - their horses would ride for what appeared to be a breach in the line ahead of them. And if we can trust Zosimus, clubs or other improvised blunt instruments were known to be effective against heavily armoured men...

Whether accident or design, and whether a vital part of the battle or just one small aspect inflated to prominence, I still think we should give Nazarius (and his audience) the benefit of the doubt about this incident.

[koechlyruestow]

Hello Peter,

Thank you very much for your reference on Zosimus :cheer: (And Marja Erwin: no, Zosimus is using korunè and ropalon, indisputably club and mace). Another topos connected to the oriental cavalry, that we can add to their face-masks, collapsing under their armour, collapsing from the heat, etc etc.

By the way, it is a mystery to me why you are so dismissive of Plutarchus, who at least can give a reasonably acceptable description of battle, and swallow Zosimus, obviously a man who doesn't know a battle from a whorehouse brawl. The infantry sees the cavalry on their flank being chased from the battle-field and in their turn pursue the pursuing Palmyrene cavalry, catch up with them, surround them and club them to death? Right! :dizzy:

I wrote:
Cassius Dio reporting on the clashes between the Romans and the Parthians after Carrhae describes Roman infantry charging Parthian cavalry, not the other way around (48.39.1-40 5, 49.20.1-4), wouldn't you agree?

Peter wrote:
How is this relevant to what Cassius Dio wrote about the clashes during Carrhae? I must check this - but why not. Swiss pikemen were also reported charging (attacking while moving forward towards them) cavalry on many occasions - so were the Scottish highlanders at Bannockburn, who charged the English cavalry while it was slowly crossing the river in swampy terrain. However - once again - how is this relevant to what happened at Carrhae? At Carrhae cataphracts charged Roman infantry - in some other battle it could be inversely. So what is exactly your point here?

Well, I think you will find it interesting. These infantry charges, and the charges of the infantry of Antony, and later the infantry charges against the Persians, always lead to the same thing: the Iranian cavalry turn around and run, peppering their pursuers with the Parthian shot. In fact, the two references I gave you describe the Parthian cataphracts as suffering severe losses, because the Roman legionaries managed to catch up with them (and all this without the help of a mace). According to Goldsworthy The Roman Army they could catch them because the Parthians, swollen with confidence after the defeat of Crassus, were convinced the legionaries would flinch as soon as they would make a charge towards them, and found out too late that they wouldn't. After that, Parthian, and later Persian cavalry, no longer dared to charge the Roman infantry, but always fled as soon as they were charged. So it would seem those Iranian cataphracts were not at all good at charging infantry. And why should they, there were no legionaries threatening their empire anywhere else. Cavalry, yes, in abundance, but legionaries, no, only at their Western Front.

I wrote:
However, a "feigned" charge has a single, specific use?

Peter wrote:
Did you read my post? I described why both feigned and real charges were useful at Carrhae.

Yes sir, I did read your post, yes sir, you did describe that, and yes sir, that is what I was saying, your feigned charge seems to have a single, specific use (which makes it usefull, does it not? :grin: ), while Macedon and I are trying to tell you there might have been another use, intimidation leading to the flight of the infantry.

I wrote:
Nazarius [ ] who describes cataphracti so heavilly armoured that, as soon as they commence their charge, they are like a heavy cart pushed downhil, unable to turn or change direction, so that even an entire formation of infantry can simply step aside to let them pass?

Peter wrote:
This is not about armor, but rather training. A poorly trained cavalry unit could indeed be unable to change direction while already charging at high speed. Many primary sources tell us how important part of cavalry training were exercises in changing direction by entire unit, while it was moving very fast. The ability of the entire formation to change direction, is something different than the ability of one horse to change direction. It requires unit training to master this kind of maneuver.

Wel, let us assume that it is always difficult to change direction by entire unit, regardless of the formation in which this unit is moving (column, compact irregular mass, line, wedge), we are still faced with a challenge to common sense. Nazarius suggests that they went to all this trouble and considerable expense to form a unit of heavilly armoured cavalry, but then they forgot to train them to do the one thing that was supposed to make them so effective, and that is moving about in unit! Silly buggers! ;-)

[koechlyruestow]

Nathan Ross wrote:

Whether accident or design, and whether a vital part of the battle or just one small aspect inflated to prominence, I still think we should give Nazarius (and his audience) the benefit of the doubt about this incident.

Nathan, with all due respect, I think we shouldn't. It leaves you the impossible task of making up all sorts of ways in which his fruity fantasies might have worked (the heavy infantry quickly moving aside, and then the light cavalry surrounding cavalry and clubbing them to death? Those cataphracts really were very obliging cavalry!:wink: ) Just face it, for a lot of battles the only records left to us are literature, better than nothing, but do not make to much of it. Our sources only revert to reporting if they really have to, by ommission, or by oversight, but certainly not by intention.

[Domen]

the two references I gave you describe the Parthian cataphracts as suffering severe losses, because the Roman legionaries managed to catch up with them

Yes - so did Polish hussars suffer heavy losses in the battle of Dirschau in 1626, when numerically superior Swedish cavalry managed to catch them while they were crossing the bridge. On the other hand, when both sides charged each other, Swedish cavalry never managed to beat Polish hussars. At Dirschau in close combat Polish hussars could not fully exploit the advantages of their long lances.

Cavalry is most effective when they can utilize the impetus of their charge, rather than being charged.

At Bannockburn, English cavalry also suffered heavy losses when Scottish highlanders managed to catch up with them, while disordered English cavalry was crossing the river with swampy banks.

By the way, it is a mystery to me why you are so dismissive of Plutarchus, who at least can give a reasonably acceptable description of battle

A reasonably acceptable to whom?

Something which can be "reasonably acceptable" to you, may not be reasonably acceptable to someone whose reasoning is very different from your reasoning - like me, for example.

Your reasoning is biased by your pre-assumption regarding the cavalry charge mechanics. You invented a hypothesis in advance, and now you try to re-interpret everything in order to fit to your hypothesis.

And swallow Zosimus, obviously a man who doesn't know a battle from a whorehouse brawl. The infantry sees the cavalry on their flank being chased from the battle-field and in their turn pursue the pursuing Palmyrene cavalry, catch up with them, surround them and club them to death? Right!

I suggest you interpret what you read more carefully.

BTW - you mentioned examples of Roman infantry catching up with both cataphracts and horse archers, then you dismiss the account of Zosimus which says that infantry managed to catch up with Palmyrene cavalry (while not knowing from which side the infantry attacked and any other details of their attack). You don't even know if it was necessary to "catch up with" the Palmyerene cavalry, because it is more probable that both sides were aiming at a confrontation, not just the foot macemen.

Regarding a "whorehouse brawl" - you showed your lack of understanding of what you have read.

Zosimos clearly wrote that the Palmyrene cavalry formation was disorganised during the pursuit. Which means that infantry with maces attacked cavalry which was disordered and over-extended.

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Regarding the fragments of Plutarch which you quoted of Roman infantry charging cataphracts.

You forgot to mention such a "small unimportant detail", that they charged down the hill:

http://lexundria.com/dio/48/cy

"These reinforcements, however, arrived during the same days on both sides, and though Ventidius through fear of the barbarian cavalry remained on the high ground, where he was encamped, the Parthians, because of their numbers and because they had been victorious once before,despised their opponents and rode up to the hill at dawn, without even waiting to join forces with Labienus; and when nobody came out to meet them, they actually charged straight up the incline. When they were at length on the slope, the Romans rushed down upon them and easily hurled them down-hill. Many of the Parthians were killed in hand-to -hand conflict, but still more caused disaster to one another in the retreat, as some had already turned to flight and others were still coming up; and the survivors fled, not to Labienus, but into Cilicia. 4Ventidius pursued them as far as the camp, but stopped when he saw Labienus there."

Somehow Plutarch describes this clash as a "whorehouse brawl" - especially Parthians were totally confused as to what was going on, since some Parthians were escaping down the hill (chased by Romans), others attacking up the hill - and Parthians were trampling each other...

And - BTW - Plutarch doesn't mention if it was Roman infantry or cavalry or both who did it.

[Nathan Ross]

Our sources only revert to reporting if they really have to, by ommission, or by oversight, but certainly not by intention.

And yet this particular incident is described in detail - why, if it was mere fantasy? It could be an allusion to the tactics used by Scipio against elephants at Zama (Frontinus, Stratagems), or even by Lucullus against the chariots of Mithridates; but these examples might also suggest that such tactics were not impossible or unknown to Roman arms. The orator of Panegyric XII also mentions that the Maxentian army adopted a wedge attack formation in this battle, and Constantine's men enveloped it somehow.

Most panegyrics are at least 50% flights of fancy, literary allusions and poetic metaphors. But the remainder preserves some important anecdotal details - crucially, most were given very soon after the events described, and often to audiences with direct experience of those events. Part of the fun of reading them is trying to tease the one from the other. But to dismiss the whole lot as fabrication risks throwing away some of our most vivid contemporary sources.

Delivering an imperial panegyric was enormously prestigious, and could crown the career of an aspiring orator. Clearly, besides deploying a wide range of learned allusions and tricky rhetoric (what Edward Dixon calls "the late Roman passion for the obscure"), the orator had to demonstrate a full knowledge of what he was describing, and avoid making statements which would seem foolish or ignorant to his audience - ignorance was not an attribute for skilled orators! These were crafted, rehearsed recitations, and everything in them was intentional. Judging the intention is the difficult part, but we shouldn't just pass them off as meaningless statements.

so in this case, then, when Nazarius says that the clibanarii are trained 'to preserve the course of their assault after they have crashed into the opposing line', he was presumably not just speaking out of his hat (or any other suitable orifice). His audience - whether Constantine himself or (as seems more likely) the younger Caesars and their staff - would probably have been well aware of what clibanarii were for, and may even have seen them in action. Nazarius would not have risked sounding like a buffoon by just inventing a detail like that.

[Domen]

Nazarius suggests that they went to all this trouble and considerable expense to form a unit of heavilly armoured cavalry, but then they forgot to train them to do the one thing that was supposed to make them so effective, and that is moving about in unit! Silly buggers!

A newly-mobilized unit of recruits, perhaps ???

History knows many examples o very well-equipped, but poorly trained units.

Even within the same kinds of formations. The only "maneuver" which could be done by Polish hussars in 1750 was to deploy in a line according to seniority of ranks. The same military formation 100 years earlier was perfectly trained in carrying out dozens of complicated maneuvers on the battlefield.

To assume that every single unit of the cataphracts, in every single army, in every single historical period (since cataphracts also existed for many hundred years) was of the same quality, is stupid.

BTW - who was buying the equipment for the cataphracts?

Weren't the cataphract soldiers themselves obliged to buy proper equipment? Parthian cataphracts were recruited from rich nobility - I don't think their equipment was stored in state arsenals.

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One more comment regarding that charge down the hill at Mount Gindarus:

According to Goldsworthy The Roman Army they could catch them because the Parthians, swollen with confidence after the defeat of Crassus, were convinced the legionaries would flinch as soon as they would make a charge towards them, and found out too late that they wouldn't.

Once again some stupid claims that a text includes something which it does not include.

Not that I despise Goldsworthy or something, but having a surname Goldsworthy does not mean that everything he writes always make sense - sorry, but in this case he simply invented some silly hypothesis, which is not in the original Ancient text. Plutarch does not mention anything like this.

I quoted the proper fragment from Plutarch above. He writes, that the Parthians were confident because their charges were victorious at Carrhae ("the Parthians, because of their numbers and because they had been victorious once before,despised their opponents and rode up to the hill at dawn") - nothing about "flinching". On the other hand, at Carrhae the Roman infantry also did not flinch - yet still the charges of the Parthian cataphracts at Carrhae (once before = at Carrhae) "had been victorious".

Why would they even be convinced about some "flinching", considering that once before at Carrhae, the legionaries did not flinch when the cataphracts charged them. But still got destroyed.

What the cataphracts were convinced, was that they would be able to smash the infantry deployed on that hill - that is why they charged up the Mount Gindarus. But that was a mistake, as the Romans counter-charged them down the hill. Having a hill advantage and a numerical advantage proved enough to repulse the Parthian charge (or perhaps the Parthians flinched, on the other hand).

And there is no mention, what kind of Roman troops made that charge - cavalry, infantry or both - and if infantry, what kind of infantry (legionaries or auxiliary infantry with spears or maces or whatever else - nothing is said about their equipment by Plutarch).

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After that, Parthian, and later Persian cavalry, no longer dared to charge the Roman infantry

Now you just went over the top... Provide sources which support this wild claim. Parthian and Sassanid cavalry - was very successful in many battles, wars and campaigns against Rome.

Shapur I the Great conquered Mesopotamia, Syria, Cappadocia and Armenia from the Romans.

In the battle of Edessa, the same Shapur's forces captured the Roman Emperor Valerian (who later died). Apart from Valerian also Gordian III and Julian were killed in battle or captured by the Persians. What other historical enemy of the Roman Empire managed to kill or capture 3 Roman Emperors?

You guys should actually read about the Parthian-Roman and the Sassanid-Roman wars.

The Roman and Persian Empires fought each other for many hundreds years. And you just quote descriptions of two battles - Carrhae and Gindarus - from the early phase of those wars.

But these 2 battles, as I already proved, also don't confirm your points, Eduard.

[koechlyruestow]

Nathan Ross wrote:


It could be an allusion to the tactics used by Scipio against elephants at Zama (Frontinus, Stratagems), or even by Lucullus against the chariots of Mithridates.


Yes, that was what I thought too when I read Nazarius and then Zosimus. However, I do not think maces are mentioned for Zama or the Pontus campaign, that seems to have been a new, separate topos, connected to the phenomenon of the cataphracts.


Nathan Ross wrote:

Part of the fun of reading them is trying to tease the one from the other. But to dismiss the whole lot as fabrication risks throwing away some of our most vivid contemporary sources.

I agree, taking these sources apart and looking what is in them is all the fun. However, in my view there is far less reporting in them than you seem to allow, and much more literary convention.

[Domen]

Eduard:

What are your criteria to determine what is reporting and what is literary convention?

Fully arbitrary opinions? Or you have some more systematic scheme of analysis of sources?

Maybe describe it.

I have an impression, that your method of determining what is true and what not, is as follows:

"If facts contradict Eduard's theory, then so much the worse for the facts."

Or maybe you participated in a real Ancient battle, and that's how you know what is reporting?

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BTW - as this redraw of a relief shows, Ancient Assyrian lancers were using stallions rather than mares: