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Short description

Ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum Catafractata: Heavily armored Roman cavalry.

Description

The cataphract was widely adopted by the Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic successors of Alexander the Great's kingdom who reigned over conquered Persia and Asia minor after his death in 323 BC. The Parthians, who finally wrested control over Persia from the Seleucids Kingdom, were also noted for their reliance upon cataphracts as well as horse archers in battle.

The Romans came to know cataphracts during their frequent wars in the Hellenistic East. During their early encounters, cataphracts remained ineffective against the Roman foot-soldier, being decisively defeated in the Battle of Magnesia (189 BC) and in the battle of Lucullus with Tigran the Great near Tigranocerta in 69 BC. In 38 BC, the able Roman general Publius Ventidius, by making extensively use of slingers whose long range weapons proved very effective, defeated the uphill-storming Parthian armoured cavalry, forcing the Parthians to retreat from all Roman territories occupied since Carrhae.

At the time of Augustus, the Greek geographer Strabo considered cataphracts with horses armour to be typical of Armenian, Albanian, and Midian armies, but, according to Plutarch, they were still held in rather low esteem due to their poor tactical abilities against disciplined infantry as well as against light cavalry. However, the lingering period of exposure to cataphracts at the eastern frontier as well as the growing military pressure of the Sarmatian lance riders on the Danube frontier led to a gradual integration of cataphracts into the Roman army. Thus, although armoured riders were used in the Roman army as early as the 2nd century BC (Polybios, VI, 25, 3), the first recorded deployment and use of cataphracts by the Roman Empire comes in the 2nd Century AD, during the reign of emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD), who created the Ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum catafractata. A key architect in the process was evidently the Roman emperor Gallienus who created a highly mobile force in response to the multiple threats along the northern and eastern frontier. However, as late as 272 AD, Aurelian's army completely composed of light cavalry defeated Zenobia at the Battle of Immae, proving the continuing importance of mobility on the battle field.

As a result of this lingering period of exposure to cataphracts, by the fourth century the Roman Empire had adopted a number of vexillations of mercenary cataphract cavalry (see the Notitia Dignitatum), such as the Sarmatian Auxiliaries. The Romans deployed both native and mercenary units of cataphracts throughout the Empire, from Asia Minor all the way to Britain, where a contingent of 5,500 Sarmatian cataphracts were posted in the 2nd century by emperor Marcus Aurelius.