Cataphract - Spread To Central Asia and The Near East

Spread To Central Asia and The Near East

When discussing the evolution of the heavily armored horseman, it should be noted that it was not isolated to one focal point during a specific era (such as the Iranian plateau), but rather developed simultaneously in different parts of Central Asia (especially among the peoples inhabiting the Silk Road) as well as within the Iranian subcontinent. Assyria and the Khwarezm region bear significant importance in fostering the development of cataphract-like cavalry during the 1st millennium BC. Reliefs discovered in the ancient ruins of Nimrud (the ancient Assyrian city founded by king Shalmaneser I during the 13th century BC) depict for the first time riders wearing plated-mail shirts composed of metal scales, presumably deployed to provide the Assyrians with a tactical advantage over the unprotected mounted archers of their nomadic enemies, primarily the Aramaeans, Mushki, North Arabian tribes and the Babylonians. The Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC) period, under which the Neo-Assyrian Empire was formed and reached its military peak, is believed to have been the first context within which the Assyrian kingdom formed crude regiments of cataphract-like cavalry. Though armed only with a pike, these early horsemen were very qualified as mounted cavalrymen, but when provided with a bow under Sennacherib (705-681 BC), they eventually became capable both of long-range and hand-to-hand combat, mirroring the development of dual-purpose cataphract archers by the Parthian Empire during the 1st century BC.

Archaeological excavations also indicate that, by the 6th century BC, similar experimentation had taken place among the Iranian peoples inhabiting the Khwarezm region and Aral Sea basin, such as the Massagetae, Dahae and Saka. While the offensive weapons of these prototype cataphracts were identical to those of the Assyrians, they differed in that not only the mount but also the head and flanks of the horse were protected by armor. Whether this development was influenced by the Assyrians, as Rubin postulates, or perhaps the Achaemenid Empire, or whether they occurred spontaneously and entirely unrelated to the advances in heavily armored cavalry made in the Ancient Near East, cannot be discerned by the archaeological records left by these mounted nomads.

The further evolution of these early forms of heavy cavalry in Western Eurasia is not entirely clear. Heavily armored riders on large horses appear in 4th century BC frescoes in the northern Black Sea region, notably at a time when the Scythians who relied on light horse archers were superseded by the Sarmatians. By the 3rd century BC, light cavalry units were used in most eastern armies, but still only "relatively few states in the East or West attempted to imitate the Assyrian and Chorasmian experiments with mailed cavalry".