Who were the most heavily armored of Romes allies or enemies

[Caballo]

Has to be the eary 1st century crupellarius- so heavily armoured that they had difficulty in moving forward to attack, and were impervious to the Roman swords and javelins....
Some good pictures and a reconstruction here- sort of a Roman Ned Kelly :wink:

http://www.romanarmy.nl/rat/viewtopic.php?t=6236

[Robert Vermaat]

Oh I agree with heavy cavalry, both warrior and horse armoured, did exist at the time. But the horses wear close-fitting (elastic, seemingly) scale suits... :wink:

[Arthes]

Has to be the eary 1st century crupellarius- so heavily armoured that they had difficulty in moving forward to attack, and were impervious to the Roman swords and javelins....
Some good pictures and a reconstruction here- sort of a Roman Ned Kelly :wink:

http://www.romanarmy.nl/rat/viewtopic.php?t=6236

hock: That looks more like a medieval knight...obviously where the inspiration came from, i'd never heard of them.....the Crupellarius, that is.

[Arthes]

Some good pictures and a reconstruction here- sort of a Roman Ned Kelly :wink:

http://www.romanarmy.nl/rat/viewtopic.php?t=6236

hock: That looks more like a medieval knight...obviously where the inspiration came from, i'd never heard of them.....the Crupellarius, that is.

I was reminded of this when looking at an online friend's Crusader helm....
examples of that and the Great helm can be seen here....
I have always wondered about this Scythian artifact...which I nicknamed the 'Altai Spaceman'...could it be a similarly armoured 'ancient Ned Kelly'..or still a spaceman.....??? :roll: :roll:

Image can be found at JohnHaskin

[Dan Howard]

Clibanarii? Segmented armour? Well, part of it, but no way all of it.

Wait a minute, are you telliing me that "Rome Total War" has it wrong? I'm crushed, really.

Actually, only the arm and leg protection of cataphracts & clibanarii in RTW is segmented armour :wink: Everything else is scale armour.

Do we really know this? I have seen a very crude grafitto from Dura Europos that could be interpreted a dozen different ways. And how do we know that this is the type of soldier that the Romans actually referred to as "clibanarius"?

[Roy]

I don't think there was one specific type/combination of armour used by cataphracts/clibanarii.
Wouldn't it be more likely it was a general term for heavily armoured cavalry?



The Nikephori Praecepta Militaria describes the armour of Byzantine 10th century klibanophoroi as a lamellar klibanion with elbow-length sleeves and over it a thick padded epilorikion. The head was protected by an iron helmet with a mail hood of 2 or 3 layers thick, and left only the eyes uncovered. The forearms and lower legs were protected by splint-armour vambraces and greaves, with any gaps filled by pieces of mail.
Hands and feet were protected by mail-strengthened gauntlets and metal overshoes.
The horses wore klibania of oxhide which left only the eyes, nose and lower legs unprotected.
Other forms of horse-armour mentioned are 2 or 3 layers of felt glued together, iron or horn lamellae, and mail.


The Clibinarii cavalry of Shapur II is described by the Roman general and historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who fought against the Persians under the emperor Julian:
"All the companies were clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff-joints conformed with those of their limbs; and the forms of human faces were so skilfully fitted to their heads, that since their entire body was covered with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or where through the tip of their nose they were able to get a little breath. Of these some who were armed with pikes, stood so motionless that you would have thought them held fast by clamps of bronze."
"The Persians opposing us sent bands of mail-clad horsemen in such close order that the gleam of moving bodies covered with closely fitting plates of iron dazzled the eyes of those who looked upon them, while the whole throng of horses was protected by coverings of leather."


Graffito from Dura Europos:
[url:3hnf1xyv]http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/gaddis/HST354/Apr17/Clibanarius.jpg[/url]

Sarmatian cataphract:










As you can see, a lot of different types of armour

[philsidnell]

And for the Parthian cataphracts, the relevant passage would be from Plutarch's account of Carrhae:

'Before the Romans recovered from their consternation at this din, the enemy suddenly dropped the coverings from their armour. Now they could be seen clearly, their helmets and breastplates blazing like fire, their Margianian steel glittering keen and bright, their horses armoured with plates [scale?] of bronze and steel'

and when the Romans' Gallic auxiliary cavalry finally got to grips with the Parthian heavy cavalry

'both in attack and defence the odds were against them. The small light spears of his Gauls came up against tough breastplates of raw hide or steel...they grasped the long spears of the Parthians in their hands, grappled with the riders and pulled them down, clumsy with all their weight of armour, from their horses'.

Plutarch, Crassus 24-25

and here is an evocative description of charging Sarmatians (in chainmail?


'A fierce band of Sarmatians came thronging with savage yells; stiff are their lorica with supple chains; and such too the coverings of their steeds; but stretching out over the horse's head and shoulders the fir wood shaft, firmly resting on their knees, casts a long shadow upon the enemy's field, and forces its way with all the might of both warrior and steed.'

Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, vi. 233.

Pausanius on the other hand describes Sarmatians making armour from split hooves:

'They collect hooves and clean them out and split them down to make them like snake scales - you will not go far wrong if you think of this hoof work like the notches of a pine cone. They bore holes in these scales and sew them with horse and cattle hair to make breastplates no less good-looking than Greek ones, and no weaker; they stand up to striking and shooting from close range.'

Pausanius, i, c. 21


Phil Sidnell