Caetrati Cavalry
Missile Cavalry(0.6.7)Side / Back
Short description
The Caetrati Cavalry were a distinctive Iberian unit: able to skirmish with their javelins, or charge the enemy with their falcata and caetra.
Description
The Caetrati Cavalry were a distinctive Iberian unit, valued as swift moving scouts and raiders, strong against enemy cavalry: superb for pursuing broken enemy units, and moving against the enemy flanks and rear. They were able to stand off, skirmishing with javelins, or charge with their falcata and caetra.
The Caetrati Cavalry were famous for their lightness and mobility. They took their name from the "caetra", the distinctively Iberian small shield, which they were able to sling over the back or on the side of the horse when not in use. They rode into battle equipped with javelins, and engaged in close fighting with the falcata as their principal weapon.
They wore a short, woollen tunic with short sleeves, had bronze greaves, and a typical close-fitting "bascinet" shape helmet with emphasised bands of reinforcement around the edge, with a high-stilted crest of horsehair. Polybius and Livy describe Hannibal's Iberians in "dazzling white" tunics edged purple; Polybius says this was the national costume (Polybius, 3.114.2-4).
The Caetrati Cavalry were recruited from the petty kingdoms of Iberia, in the south and east of the Iberian Peninsula. Here the small, wealthy and highly stratified Iberian kingdoms like the Turdetani, Bastetani, Edetani, Oretani, Illergetes and Contestani engaged in regional and long-distance trade - and endemic warfare. Ruled by a warlike aristocracy of warrior princes, the Iberians embroiled themselves in a never ending struggle for power and supremacy against both one another and their Punic, Celtiberian and Lusitanian neighbours.
The Caetrati Cavalry were typically well mounted, on tough, strong horses. Spain was rich in wild horses, creating mounts that were fast and of great stamina and beauty. It may have been the Iberians that invented the horseshoe in the fourth century BC, which improved the military potential of cavalry. The Iberians decorated their mounts with care, using bells and a prominent, distinctive frontal ornament attached to the brow.