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A cataphract was a form of armored heavy cavalry used in ancient warfare by a number of peoples in Western Eurasia and the Eurasian Steppe. The word in English is derived from the (ギリシア語:κατάφρακτος) ''Kataphraktos'' (plural: κατάφρακτοι ''Kataphraktoi''), literally meaning "armored" or "completely enclosed". Historically, the cataphract was a very heavily armored horseman, with both the rider and steed draped from head to toe in scale armor, while typically wielding a kontos or lance as their weapon. Cataphracts served as either the elite cavalry or assault force for most empires and nations that fielded them, primarily used for impetuous charges to break through infantry formations. Chronicled by many historians from the earliest days of Antiquity up until the High Middle Ages, they are believed to have influenced the later European knights, via contact with the Byzantine Empire.〔Nell, Grant S. (1995) ''The Savaran: The Original Knights''. University of Oklahoma Press.〕 Notable peoples and states deploying cataphracts at some point in their history include: the Scythians, Sarmatians, Parthian army, Achaemenid army, Sakas, Armenian army, Seleucids, Pergamenes, the Sassanid army, the Roman army, the Goths and the Byzantine army. In several cases the term is used to denote a Parthian (chariot ). In the West, the fashion for heavily armored Roman cavalry seems to have been a response to the Eastern campaigns of the Parthians and Sassanids in the region referred to as Asia Minor, as well as numerous defeats at the hands of cataphracts across the steppes of Eurasia, the most notable of which is the Battle of Carrhae. Traditionally, Roman cavalry was neither heavily armored nor all that effective; the Roman Equites corps were composed mainly of lightly armored horsemen bearing spears and swords to chase down stragglers and to rout enemies. The adoption of cataphract-like cavalry formations took hold amongst the late Roman army during the late 3rd and 4th centuries. The Emperor Gallienus Augustus (253–268 AD) and his general and would-be usurper Aureolus bear much of the responsibility for the institution of Roman cataphract contingents in the Late Roman army. ==Etymology== The genesis is undoubtedly Greek. ''Kataphraktos'' (Κατάφρακτος, or various transliterations such as ''Cataphraktos'', ''Cataphractos'', or ''Katafraktos'') is composed of the Greek root words, κατά, a preposition, and φρακτός, "covered, protected", which is interpreted along the lines of "fully armored" or "closed from all sides". The term first appears substantively in Latin, in the writings of Sisennus: "''… loricatos, quos cataphractos vocant …''", meaning "… the armored, whom they call cataphract …".〔Nikonorov, Valerii P. (1998) Cataphracti, Catafractarii and Clibanarii: Another Look at the old problem of their Identifications. In Voennaia arkheologiia: Oruzhie i voennoe delo v istoricheskoi i sotsial.noi perspektive (Military Archaeology: Weaponry and Warfare in the Historical and Social Perspective). St. Petersburg:. pp. 131-138.〕 There appears to be some confusion about the term in the late Roman period, as armored cavalry men of any sort that were traditionally referred to as Equites in the Republican period later became exclusively designated as "cataphracts". Vegetius, writing in the fourth century, described armor of any sort as "cataphracts" – which at the time of writing would have been either ''lorica segmentata'' or ''lorica hamata''. Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman soldier and historian of the fourth century, mentions the: "''cataphracti equites (quos clibanarios dictitant)''" – the "cataphract cavalry which they regularly call Clibanarii" (implying that clibanarii is a foreign term, not used in Classical Latin). ''Clibanarii'' is a Latin word for "mail-clad riders", itself a derivative of the (ギリシア語:κλιβανοφόροι) ''Klibanophoroi'', meaning "camp oven bearers" from the Greek word κλίβανος, meaning "camp oven" or "metallic furnace"; the word has also been tentatively linked to the Persian word for a warrior, "grivpan". However, it appears with more frequency in Latin sources than in Greek throughout antiquity. A twofold origin of the Greek term has been proposed: either that it was a humorous reference to the heavily armored cataphracts as men encased in armor who would heat up very quickly much like in an oven; or that it was further derived from the Old Persian word '' *griwbanar'' (or '' *Grivpanvar''), itself composed of the Iranian roots ''griva-pana-bara'', which translates into "neck-guard wearer".〔Nicolle, David (1992) ''Romano-Byzantine Armies, 4th–9th Centuries''. Osprey Publishing.〕 Roman chroniclers and historians Arrian, Aelian and Asclepiodotus use the term ''cataphract'' in their military treatises to describe any type of cavalry with either partial or full horse and rider armor. The Byzantine historian Leo Diaconis calls them πανσιδήρους ἱππότας ''pansiderois ippotas'', which would translate as "fully iron-clad knights".〔Leo Diaconis, Historiae 4.3, 5.2, 8.9〕 There is, therefore, some doubt as to what exactly cataphracts were in late antiquity, and whether or not they were distinct from clibanarii. Some historians theorise that cataphracts and clibanarii were one and the same type of cavalry, designated differently simply as a result of their divided geographical locations and local linguistic preferences. Cataphract-like cavalry under the command of the Western Roman Empire, where Latin was the official tongue, always bore the Latinized variant of the original Greek name, ''Cataphractarii''. The cataphract-like cavalry stationed in the Eastern Roman Empire had no exclusive term ascribed to them, with both the Latin variant and the Greek innovation ''Clibanarii'' being used in historical sources, largely because of the Byzantine's heavy Greek influence (especially after the 7th century, when Latin ceased to be the official language). Contemporary sources, however, sometimes imply that clibanarii were in fact a heavier type of cavalryman, or formed special-purpose units (such as the late Equites Sagittarii Clibanarii, a Roman equivalent of horse archers, first mentioned in the ''Notitia Dignitatum''). Therefore, either side can be argued, but given the fact that "cataphract" was used for more than a millennium by various cultures, it stands to reason that different types of fully armored cavalry in the armies of different nations were assigned this name by Greek and Roman scholars not familiar with the native terms for such cavalry. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cataphract」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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