Illustrations of Sassanid Persian Clibanarii

[Michael Kerr]

A.D.H. Bivar in his paper "Cavalry Equipment and tactics on the Euphrates Frontier" and Professor Richard Frye in his book" The Heritage of Persia" both suggest that the Latin term clibanarius could be a loanword from Middle Persian suggested originally by Swedish Semitic etymologist Professor Frithiof Rundgren of Uppsala University Sweden who thought that there was a possible assimilation of an Iranian term *tanvar, "body-protection," to the Aramaic tannūr, "oven."

I think the Historiae Augustae Scriptores, Alexander Severus 56.6 mentions a victory over the Persians that his troops killed 10,000 of their mailed horsemen who the Persians call Clibanarius and with their armour we have armed our own men. Rundgren also thought there may also have been an Armenian root to the word as well with "grīv-pān" that might have survived in Modern Persian. Trouble with that theory is its strict meaning of "grīv-pān" is "neck guard" but you can't pin down a linguist and the explanation could be using a broader term common in a lot of languages of saving one's neck or life so in general it could mean "life guard".
I also thought that Palmyran mailed cavalry were called clibanarii. mile:

Regards
Michael Kerr