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Cataphract cavalry needed immensely strong and endurant horses, and without selectively breeding horses for muscular strength and hardiness, they would have surely not been able to bear the immense loads of armor and a rider during the strain of battle. [8] The Near East is generally believed to have been the focal point for where this first ...
Modelled on the cataphracts of Parthia, they were armoured from neck-to-toe by a variety of armour types, probably including: scale armour (lorica squamata), mail armour (lorica hamata), and laminar armour (see manica). A number of descriptions indicate that helmets with visors shaped like human faces were worn.
Reconstruction of a Sasanian-era cataphract. A medieval Armenian miniature representing the Sasanian War elephants in the Battle of Vartanantz. The backbone of the Spâh in the Sasanian era was its heavy armoured cavalry, known since Classical antiquity in the west as Cataphracts. This was made up of noblemen who underwent extensive exercises ...
The Grivpanvar (literally: neck-guard wearer) were an elite late Parthian and Sasanian division who fought as heavy cataphract cavalry. According to Roman sources, the Grivpanvar had the ability to impale two men on the long, heavy spears that they carried.
They would be guarded heavily by cataphract style cavalry. The post of aswaran sardar was held by a member of the House of Mihran . Parts of the aswaran division were high-ranking including the Pushtigban Body Guards , a super heavy shock cavalry, who were the royal guards of the Shah himself.
The standard cataphract weapon was a xyston-like spear. For close-quarter combat, a mace or sword was made available as a secondary weapon. The mace and cataphract ideas were combined into the Sassanid-introduced and Roman-named Clibanarii, who were armoured, both man and beast, in chainmail, and armed with a mace.
Byzantine cataphracts were a much feared force in their heyday. The army of Emperor Nicephorus II , the 'Pale Death of the Saracens' himself, relied on its cataphracts as its nucleus, coupling cataphract archers with cataphract lancers to create a self-perpetuating 'hammer blow' tactic where the cataphract lancers would charge again and again ...
With the cataphracts' attention fixed elsewhere, Lucullus formed two cohorts into maniples and then ordered them to ford the river. [27] His objective was to outflank Tigranes' cataphracts by circling counterclockwise around the hill and attacking them from the rear. [28]