The Cataphract-Heavy Armored Cavalry

The cataphract was the Ancient Worlds "tank." Heavily armored and armed, the cataphract was the ultimate shock force of well-formed and trained armies, as only these could afford large units of these tremendously expensive cavalrymen. They were used the greatest and most effectively in the armies of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire and Persian Empire in the centuries before the formation of the European knights. For centuries, cataphracts ruled the battlefields of the East while Western Europe was in the throes of the Dark Ages.