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Short description

Iberian Cataphract: a traditional eastern cataphract, fighting with a lance and a bow.

Description

The term Cataphract comes from the Greek, and it means enclosed from all sides. These men and their horses are a perfect example of it. Covered from tail to head with scale, their horses can smash right through an enemy line with few problems. The riders themselves have little to fear, their scale armour protect most of their body, in exception to the legs because it is impossible to lead a horse when the lower half of the body is rigid. When charging, the cataphracts used their six-foot long lance, the kontos, with both hands, resulting in a dreadful chock for the soldiers skewered.

The Assyrians seem to be the first to have used extensively cataphracts, or at least heavily armoured cavalrymen fighting with a lance, as shown by reliefs discovered in the ruins of Nimrud (13th century BC). These riders were at advantage against the other people cavalry which were for the most part unarmored.

The Assyrian Empire influenced the Middle East for nearly a millennium, from around 1700 to 700 BC. Their armies was mostly composed of charioteers and the heavy cavalry that would become the precursor of the cataphracts, fielding thousands of these soldiers on the same battlefield.

Although the Assyrian Empire fell, the military traditions it had remains strong in the region, especially the use of heavy cavalry fighting with a lance. The Iberians show this heritage, and any warlord trying to subdue them will feel their thirst for freedom if they are underestimated.