Did the Seleucids Invent Heavy Cavalry?

[Michael Kerr]

For some reason threads on cavalry always seem to get diverted from the OP which in this case asked “Did the Seleucids invent heavy cavalry aka cataphractii?”

 I have Gaebel's Cavalry Operations in the Ancient Greek World and although a good read he is referring to Greek and Macedonian cavalry and not Eastern influenced cavalry. Although effective the Companions could not be classed as cataphracts although they had helmets and breastplates. Erich B Anderson wrote a good book on the origin of cataphracts, surprisingly called Cataphracts Knights of the Ancient Eastern Empires not long ago. It covers Seleucid, Massagetae/Chorismean, Parthian, Armenian, Palmyran, Sassanid, Roman and Byzantine cataphracts.

 Just on deployment of cavalry I cannot imagine fully armed cataphractii being used for scouting unless they had a couple of mounts. Horses are not machines and eventually do tire after work. Eastern horses especially steppe horses had great endurance so often outperformed their western counterparts. Maybe heavy and light cavalry in ancient times is not the correct terminology possibly missile and shock. Sure cataphractii can chase down infantry routers but you get the sense that cavalrymen and their horses lose their heads a bit in the heat of battle. At the battle of Magnesia Antiochus III led his cavalry including cataphracts on the right wing and broke through but instead of wheeling and attacking the flanks or rear of the Romans they kept chasing fleeing troops to the Roman camp where they were stopped in their tracks by the camp commander rallying the troops leaving his infantry to be cut to pieces by the Romans and the forces of their ally Eumenes.

 While on the Seleucid cataphractii as I stated before most of their recruiting base were Medes and other assorted Eastern satrapies but after the 160s BC these regions were lost to the Parthians and recruiting was limited to Syria so I don’t know how much that affected the quality of their cataphracts. As a rule the Romans defeated cataphracts at Magnesia in 189 BC and Tigranocerta in 69 BC but got a rude shock at Carrhae in 53 BC although it was the lighter horse archers who had close to an unlimited supply of arrows which really won the battle after the cataphracts destroyed the Roman/Gallic cavalry which fell for the old “sucker punch” of pursuing retreating horse archers who were really separating them from their infantry support and having the rested Parthian cataphracts laying in wait to finish off the tiring Gallic cavalry.

 The Massagetae and Chorasmians more than likely were the originators of cataphracts but probably more to close in and attack the horse archers of their enemies. These fragments date from the 4th century BC. The image on the left is a fragment of a vessel showing the lower half of an armored horse and a rider with a spear from Khumbuz-tepe in Chorasmia, Uzbekistan. The one on the right shows Ceramic fragment showing a horseman with a long spear held with both hands from Koi-krylgan-kala in Chorasmia, Uzbekistan. They had a large sedentary part of their population with the skill, access, money and the ability to smelt iron for armour.

   

 I think the Roxolani, who going by their depiction on Trajan’s column could seriously be considered cataphracts were more effective against auxiliary, inexperienced or badly led Roman troops but seemed to be less effective against experienced heavy infantry and conditions had to suit them. If their charge lost momentum or conditions were against them then they were vulnerable like when they were defeated by the Romans in 69 AD.

Regards

Michael Kerr