Cataphracts

[Patrick Waterson]

I'm not sure where this thread is going, to be honest. We've a definition of cataphracts/clibinarii that tries to encompass armoured cavalry (with complete, partial or no horse armour) from Parthian armies of the 1st century BC to 11th century AD Byzantines and making generalisations on equipment and tactics based solely on a selective nomenclature, so Persians are included because the Romans called them clibs/cats, but we seem to be excluding Turks, Tibetans, Koreans and Chinese who are just as heavily armoured as the heaviest western/near eastern types.

That is because Tibetans, Koreans and Chinese do not appear in Greek and/or Roman sources and Turks are comparative latecomers to same.    One can always expand the topic to 'armoured cavalry' to consider them, but the initial aim of the thread seems to have been to try and establish what, if any, were the operative differences between the terms 'cataphracti' and 'clibanarii' within the context of the Near East and Roman Empire in the period c.200 BC to c.AD 400.

[Andreas Johansson]

I don't think there's any evidence that clibanarii ever referred to men on half-armoured horses. That was a hypothesis put forward by Phil Barker in the 1970s and he's changed his mind since then.

I believe it was based on this sculpture showing Khosrau II on a half-armoured horse combined with the idea that the clibanarii were the archetypal Sassanid cavalry and the somewhat rash assumption that the king of kings would be shown with the gear of same.

Note BTW that AEIR doesn't say that clibanarii always meant men on half-armoured horses. On the contrary, it has early Sassanid clibanarii used complete horse armour, but of felt rather than the later metal. A relief is cited. Roman clibanarii are suggested to have been on part-armoured horses, but this is explicitly a conjecture based on the Sassanid analogy.

[Mick Hession]

Thanks for the clarification Patrick. I was puzzled why Turks were excluded when later Byzantines, whose horse armour was based on Turkic models, were included in Mark's list. If the thread's objective is to understand _Roman_ cataphracts and clibinarii then I believe the Avar-based half-armour to be a red herring.

Cheers
Mick 

[tadamson]

I would make some comments..

1)
"wargamers cataphracts" -
Fully armoured men on fully armoured horses; armed with long heavy two handed lances; in close order advancing at the trot.
These stem from Phil's thoughts decades ago that combine some Roman descriptions of the heaviest armed Armenian and Persian cavalry with the much later description of the tactics for a Byzantine unit of very heavily equipped cavalry used to break up infantry (the unit was, rather ironically, called Klibanophoroi ).  There is very little evidence of how the fully armoured cavalry contemporary to the classical powers fought, and most of it supports lance and bow 'steppe' style tactics.

2)
Greek and Roman writers using the term cataphract/kataphractoi...
Most authors simply used the term to mean 'armoured', no more no less.  The Victorian translators habitually used the term 'currasier' (which had almost exactly the same loose meaning in their day).  The term clibanarii is in some ways more specific (it's almost always used for cavalry), and in some ways less so (the 'baking oven' root is first used in a Roman comedy), and again not terribly useful.

3)
Armoured men on armoured horses pre-date the Persians and Romans. The normal armament 'East of Rome' is lance and bow, some illustrations show just lance and later (600CE onwards) sometimes a long sword and a small shield with a central grip replace the lance.

[Dave Beatty]

Don't forget the Tibetans.

[aligern]

i thought that the point of the original post was that Mark percieves a difference between cavalry who have heavy  horse armour and a long lance (and mostly no bow) and cavalry with horse armour and lance and bow and probably have either lighter felt and or leather armour or half armour. Let's call the heavy, lance only troops, type A and the lighter bow armed chaps type B. At one point there was a series of posts that suggested that type A moved slowly to the attack because of their heavy kit and that type B developed to protect the flanks of the As who were vulnerable to attack by lighter cavalry.

If  we were to say that Type A did not exist we would be wrong. Seleucid cataphracts and tenth century Byzantine cataphracts fit the definition of break-through cavalry in heavy armour, man and horse. Later Moghul cavalry would fit the definition of type B as their horse armour is light and flexible, their lances short and their bows prominent.
The debate has shown that there abre multiple variations on the cataphract and not just two types. the combination of armour for man and horse and weaponry of lance (long and short), sword, mace and bow has been tried in every permutation. 
Given these variations of kit and useage a challenge is thrown down to rulewriters, particularly those who create a number of classes of cavalry and give each class a movement rate, a protection level, a weapon effect and a prescriptive outcome when it wins or loses. Of course it is much easier for some of the earlier rules systems that simply provided a tariff  for armour, weaponry , speed  etc and then build each combination.
the difficulty that creating a named troop type with fixed attributes a la DB rules creates is exemplified by the debate, many years ago, about Parthian cataphracts and bows. Once the rulewriter had decided that they did not have bows and did have heavy armour they were fixed as a category despite much evidence to the contrary. at the time I thought that the defence of this category was just pig headed, but there is a deeper point which was that the system of categorisation at the heart of such rules (the Superior Light Horse or Knights Fast or Auxilia X type definitions) relies upon  crunching troops' abilities into broad categories and once you unpick one you oPen the door to debate on all. i am sure that the rules writers who use such categories fully understand that they are doing a violence to the evidence by clumping together warriors who could easily have been included in other definitions. In order to get  simplicity evidence has to be either ignored or interpreted in a way that fits the rules rather than the facts as others see them.
To return to the cataphracts point, i just do not see why the breakthrough type cataphracts who have armour  and long lances or maces are categorised as moving slowly. Is there any actual evidence for this rather than the compelling myth in a rulesmith's mind that  men in heavy, clumsy armour on metal armoured horses must move slowly?
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks for the clarification Patrick. I was puzzled why Turks were excluded when later Byzantines, whose horse armour was based on Turkic models, were included in Mark's list. If the thread's objective is to understand _Roman_ cataphracts and clibinarii then I believe the Avar-based half-armour to be a red herring.

Cheers
Mick

Yes, the focus has wandered slightly and I think Roy's post puts it back in perspective: he has reminded us that the supplementary question at the start of the thread was whether in Near Eastern armies of the Hellenistic-Roman period there was a slow-moving tight-formed cataphract lancer type or whether, as Tom indicates, the evidence points in the direction of such fully-armoured types operating essentially like normal cavalry but with the advantage of greater protection.

[Mark G]

yes, that works much better as a summation.

I allowed myself to get wildly distracted, which never helps - but I learned a good bit in the process, which does.

ps. nice to see you at a proper keyboard again Roy, whatever mobility device you are using, its auto correct has played merry havoc on whatever it was you had attempted to communicate over recent weeks.

As for your question - which is a central one.

what we have is some evidence from Carrhae of Cataphracts which
retain a very close formation
successfully receive a mounted charge at a halt,
and which are used to direct rather than to shatter formed infantry (into the attack of Parthian Horse Archers) - that is, which use steady pressure rather than an impact charge.
but we also have them being able to generate a fearsome charge on men which have broken formation - which to me is evidence that individually, cats could charge like cavalry, but when acting in formation they did not.

which raises the question of why not when in formation - to which the answer I find (so far) is in their extreme vulnerability to the flanks and to men who get in between the horses - for which Ammianus gives a good example of how the horseman is vulnerable to a footman inside his lance.

We also have zosimos describing cats which are tired by being tricked into charging cavalry which evade repeatedly.  no indication these are light horse either - which again suggests that the targets looked like something the cats could catch - but that they only had a very small distance of speed before having to pull up, and a lack of endurance compared with normal cavalry.

We also deconstructed Magnesia to find that the evidence of a cataphract charge there is a lot less solid than it appears - with the infantry running as their flank was threatened, and the cats following up, rather than the cats making the charge.
we also have the cause of this rout being the defeat of the Roman cavalry first.

so that is a lot of evidence of the cats having to remain in a tight close formation which precludes charging at speed as a group, but not as individuals.

[aligern]

Contra those examples of slow cataphracts we have Sarmatians who clearly charge fast and yet have such heavy armour that they are useless on foot and do also have horse armour. IIRC the description of catphracts in Heliodorus has them charging. Perhaps someone could remind us of the description of the battle where the Armenian cataphracts fight the Romans.
Roy

[tadamson]

More random thoughts...

Roy, only some Moghul cavalry had short lances  14-16 ft is the average for surviving lances from the period.

Mark I do not believe that close order cavalry MUST move slowly.  We have numerous 17th and C comments about cavalry in very close order (knee behind knee stuff) charging at a 'good round trot' to maintain formation. But on the other hand we have Chinese and Mongol accounts of cavalry 'dancing' (skirmishing in modern gamer speak) then forming up in close order to attack at a full gallop.

On the side of the 'wargamer cataphract' there are the crusade period references (several but separate) to, smallish, units of ghilman who form up in close order for specific attacks.  I wonder if it's more of a tactic used by heavy cavalry that a troop type as such.

Tom..

[Mark G]

I have never said they MUST move slowly.

But I have said that they could not maintain formation if they moved at a gallop - this is very difficult to do, and there is plenty of history to show that only the best drilled cavalry ever attain it - 
and then offered clear evidence that they sought to maintain formation above all other things and for sensible reasons which again emphasises that they chose not to gallop as a formation.

Roy's Sarmatians are the same red herring they have always been - this is not about any armour on a horse, this is about the blanket ridged armour of a cataphract, and the vulnerability it brings to the individual horsemen, which is countered by maintaining a strict boot to boot formation.

As for trotting - you cannot trot into combat with a long lance - the vibration runs down the shaft and it becomes impossible to aim.

hence, individual galloping OR slower (formation) attacks.

You will note the replacement of long lances as time progresses, the introduction of bows, maces etc, the change in saddle back and so forth - all of which change the dynamic of the close formation requirement.

I would be interested to see whether Heliodorus  has any thing to challenge that view.

[aligern]

Tom, i was working from artistic representations of Moghul cavalry which I recall as generally short, though some Persian school ones are indeed long.

Mark, I am intrigued by your trotting argument. is there any proof that a lance of say 12 ft long is unmanageable at speeds lower than a gallop, particularly when held n both hands?

Byzantine cavalry with long lances are epected to charge, i rather doubt that they do this at the gallop because that would lead to a dangerous loss of cohesion.

I have never said they MUST move slowly.

But I have said that they could not maintain formation if they moved at a gallop - this is very difficult to do, and there is plenty of history to show that only the best drilled cavalry ever attain it - 
and then offered clear evidence that they sought to maintain formation above all other things and for sensible reasons which again emphasises that they chose not to gallop as a formation.

Roy's Sarmatians are the same red herring they have always been - this is not about any armour on a horse, this is about the blanket ridged armour of a cataphract, and the vulnerability it brings to the individual horsemen, which is countered by maintaining a strict boot to boot formation.

As for trotting - you cannot trot into combat with a long lance - the vibration runs down the shaft and it becomes impossible to aim.

hence, individual galloping OR slower (formation) attacks.

You will note the replacement of long lances as time progresses, the introduction of bows, maces etc, the change in saddle back and so forth - all of which change the dynamic of the close formation requirement.

I would be interested to see whether Heliodorus  has any thing to challenge that view.

So far I would prefer to see Cataphracts as having a range of tactics and as not having to be slower on the tabletop than other heavy cavalry. Looking at the Dura cataphract on the horse it does not look that heavy or restrictive. I looked again at Carrhae and the action against Publius can be seen as him attacking a stationary line, but that might just be sensible Parthian tactics at that point in the battle.  The horse archers wheel away leaving the Gallic cavalry facing the Cataphract line. Perhaps aving it move forward would have compromised the horse archers evade?

[Andreas Johansson]

Mark I do not believe that close order cavalry MUST move slowly.  We have numerous 17th and C comments about cavalry in very close order (knee behind knee stuff) charging at a 'good round trot' to maintain formation.

Swedish early 18C cavalry were supposed to charge knee-behind-knee at a canter/gallop.

(The Sw. word used is galopp, which usually means canter today but sometimes gallop (or both). I don't claim to know exactly what it meant in the 18C but definitely something faster than a trot.)

[Patrick Waterson]

It may even be that speed of advance is determined more by the extent and quality of training than by equipment and/or closeness of formation.

One set of engagements we may wish to look at is Constantine against Maxentius, because this is one of the cases which is generally understood to be cataphracts being tempted into a charge by lighter cavalry and defeated in detail, or disorder, or both.

First there was the battle at Turin (AD 312), and I am still looking for the original account of this action - anyone please feel free to quote it.  All I have found at present is the Wikipedia article stating that Constantine equipped his cavalry with iron-topped clubs (maces?) for dealing with the opposing cavalry.

Zosimus' account of the crucial battle at the Milvian Bridge (also AD 312) goes thus:

"And the two armies being drawn up opposite to each other, Constantine sent his cavalry against that of the enemy, whom they charged with such impetuosity that they threw them into disorder. The signal being given to the infantry, they likewise marched in good order towards the enemy. A furious battle having commenced, the Romans themselves, and their foreign allies, were unwilling to risk their lives, as they wished for deliverance from the bitter tyranny with which they were burdened; though the other troops were slain in great numbers, being either trod to death by the horse, or killed by the foot.

As long as the cavalry kept their ground, Maxentius retained some hopes, but when they gave way, he fled with the rest over the bridge into the city. The beams not being strong enough to bear so great a weight, they broke; and Maxentius, with the others, was carried with the stream down the river." - Zosimus II.44

Curiously, there is nothing about tempting Maxentius' cataphracts out of position, only 'charging them with such impetuosity that they threw them into disorder'.  Presumably Constantine's cavalry had retained their concussion weapons from their earlier battles and used these to good effect to neutralise their opponents' advantage in armour.

[Andreas Johansson]

It may even be that speed of advance is determined more by the extent and quality of training than by equipment and/or closeness of formation.

Later experience certainly suggests so. Frederick the Great found that long training was needed to get his cavalry to charge in line at the gallop, and they were very lightly equipped by cataphract standards.