Cataphract, Clibanarii, whatever, against Infantry

[Aulus Perrinius]

There does seem to be a lot of sweeping generalizations whenever this topic comes up. People also seem to bring up examples from many different periods, even though its likelt that the relationship between different types of troops in different cultures at different times varied.

Another datapoint is the battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE. That involved Seleucid cataphracts charging a Roman line from the front and driving a legion back into its camp in disorder. In his book on the Seleucid army Bezallel bar Kochva argues that the legion which was driven back was one of citizens, not socii as Livy suggests.

According to Livy (I read in the excerpt in Phillip Sidnell's Warhorse: Cavalry in the Ancient World) the Cataphracts first pinned the roman cavalry on the river and took them in the flank and front, breaking them and then they attacked the roman infantry. It sounds to me like the Cataphracts drove the roman cavalry back through the roman infantry who probably got out the way (not wanting to skewer their own men and all) and so they were already shaken up when the Cataphracts hit them. And even after all that the Roman infantry rallied and repulsed the Cataphracts.