Cataphract

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A cataphract was a form of armoured heavy cavalry that originated in Central Asia and was fielded in ancient warfare throughout Eurasia and Northern Africa. Historically, the cataphract was a very heavily armoured horseman, with both the rider and mount almost completely covered in scale or lamellar armour over chain mail, and typically wielding a kontos (lance) as his primary weapon. Cataphracts served as the elite cavalry force for most empires and nations that fielded them, primarily used for charges to break through opposing heavy cavalry and infantry formations. Chronicled by many historians from the earliest days of antiquity up until the High Middle Ages, they may have influenced the later European knights, through contact with the Eastern Roman Empire. Peoples and states deploying cataphracts at some point in their history included: the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Medes, Parthians, Achaemenids, Sakas, Indians, Armenians, Seleucids, Attalid, Pontus, Greco-Bactrian, Sassanids, Romans...

Read on Wikipedia · Image John Tremelling, GFDL