Armoured heavy cavalry (cataphracts)
Caballería acorazada (catafractos)
- Date
- c. century IV a.C. (uso documentado: 190 BCE) · confidence low
- Place
- Magnesia ad Sipylum (Manisa), Turkey
- Credited to
- Iranian steppe peoples, Achaemenids, Seleucids and Parthians
- Field
- Conflict
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Riders in scale or plate armour that also covered the horse, armed with a long lance, charging in close order against infantry. The Seleucids used them at Magnesia (190 BC) and the Parthians and Sasanians made them the core of their army.
The exact origin (Scythians, Massagetae, Achaemenids) is uncertain; the date is that of the first well-documented use in Greek and Roman sources.
What it led to
- Roman and Byzantine heavy cavalry (clibanarii)
- armoured feudal cavalry
- the Roman defeat at Carrhae (53 BC) against the Parthians