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Short description

Elite cataphract cavalry, they can pierce almost every infantry line with one charge.

Description

The Saka (Scythian) elite are the men of the highest class of Scythian society, the nobles. Armored and armed as Cataphracts, these men are very capable shock cavalry, able to cut through enemy infantry like a hot knife through butter. They wear the distinctive Saka red hats, also found on "the golden man", an 18 year old saka noble found in the Issyk kurgan. This burial mound lies in south-eastern Kazakhstan, and it was discovered in 1969.

As the Saka elite are armored as cataphracts, it's not surprising they have heavy scale armor as their primary defense. Using the large two-handed lances as their primary weapon, this kind of cavalry grew in favour with the peoples of the east. Often called the "tanks of the ancient world", cataphracts, and thus these men, could turn the tide of any battle. Cataphracts had not only been used by the Saka (Scythians) though. The Sarmatians, Byzantines, Parthians, Achaemenids (Persians), Armenians, Seleucids, Pergamenes and even the Assyrians were known for using cataphracts, all in different eras. Armed with a kontos or lance for charges and a mace or any other kind of smaller weapon for close combat, it's no wonder these units were used by so many different nations and tribes.

The Romans at Carrhae suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of Parthian horse archers and cataphracts. In this army, the cataphract units were formed by the nobles while the horse archers were made up of peasants.

A Roman historian, Ammianus Mercellinus, described the sight of Persian cataphracts in the 4th century:

"… all the companies were clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff-joints conformed with those of their limbs; and the forms of human faces were so skilfully fitted to their heads, that since their entire body was covered with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or where through the tip of their nose they were able to get a little breath. Of these some, who were armed with pikes, stood so motionless that you would think them held fast by clamps of bronze."

Even the medieval European knight was a direct descendant of the cataphract. But it were not just the riders who were heavily armored, their horses were protected as well. With decorated scales, these horses were just as dangerous as their masters, since they could trample over quite everything in their path. Findings of these decorations show us different things like head-dresses with crests in the form of mountain goats, masks in form of deer antlers and boars' teeth as decoration for the harness. Decorated saddle covers have also been found, with colourful patterns. There is no doubt that the horse of the cataphract was just as highly placed as the man himself, and as it often goes in history, decoration was also a way of showing how rich one was.