History Question

So Clairbell asks, "What is a Cataphract?".

Well, specifically, it is the term used by the later Romans and Byzantine's to describe Roman heavy calvary. The core of the Byzantine army were the Cataphracts, horse soldiers that were trained to use lance, sword and bow.

A short digression. From the earliest times the Roman army as we know it was an infantry army. The source of Roman power was the legions and the backbone of the legion were the legionares, heavy armored infantry armed with shield, short sword and javelins or pilum, trained to fight in a more flexible version of the Greek phalanx. In republican times the legionares were drawn from the plebian class. Each Legion had about 4000 of these heavy infantry, with a contingent of light armed skirmishers (usually younger men from allied tribes) an about 300 calvary drawn from the business class, or Equies.

Roman calvary generally was pretty bad in the field, in fact one commentator referred to republican and early empire Roman calvary as the worst in history. At times this presented problems, Hannibal played merry hell with one Roman army after another thanks in part to his Spanish and Numidian Calvary. Scipio Africanus made a point of cultivating a rival Numidian king, and when he went into the decisive Battle of Zama, his Roman legions were well supported by Numidian horse.

Hannibal lost that one.

From that point forward, the Romans made sure that their legions were accompanied by auxiliary calvary drawn from groups that had a better calvary tradition. Also, after the Punic wars, the Roman legions had learned a few more tricks for managing calvary opponents. For the next 400 years, calvary was not considered particularly effective against the highly trained and heavily armed Roman foot soldiers.

In the third century, however, things changed dramatically. The empire was engulfed in what was later to be known as "The Crisis of the Third Century" or the Gothic Storm. In a nutshell, the empire was overrun by barbarians, almost dismembered and forever changed. The principle culprits were the Gothic and Hun tribes that fielded large forces of heavy calvary and horse archers.

By the third century, calvary had changed dramatically, mostly due to the invention of the stirrup, which allowed soldiers to sit more firmly in their mounts. The barbarians combined the classic harassment tactics of the steppe horse archers with the shock of charging heavy calvary. The legions had changed as well, no longer as disciplined, as large in number, or as effective as they were in their heyday.

To counter the barbarians and bolster the legions, the Romans developed the Cataphracts, professional Roman heavy calvary, trained in both horse archer tactics and in close quarter shock. As the centuries progressed and as the Roman Empire shrunk to only the Eastern Empire and then the Byzantine empire, the Cataphract replaced the legion, as the Tagma, or calvary regiment, replaced the legion in the armies of the empire. Byzantine horse armies, composed of Cataphracts (and mercenary auxiliaries of Huns, Arabs and the like) led by men like Belesarius, Narses, Maurice and Hercules held and sometimes expanded the Eastern Empire for a thousand years.

I identify with the Cataphracts, they were professional, they were versatile, they were good. The avoided doing stupid things, like ill timed charges when charges made no sense (unlike the Frankish knights, who would charge anything at the drop of a hat). They were trained in a variety of military arts and tactics, and when well led, they were unbeatable.

My kind of guys.