Cataphracts and Crossbows

 From time to time in writing about Roman military history one comes across discussions about the difference between cataphractarii and clibanarii.  The general opinion seems to be that there was not much, if any, difference between them:  they were both cavalrymen, very heavily-armored and probably much like, or modelled closely on, the Sassanian or Persian cavalry of the heaviest kind.  Thus, both man and horse were armored, the rider probably covered entirely in ring-armor or scale armor, the horse protected with a frontlet and a trapper of some sort.  The horse-trapper of scale armor excavated from Dura Europus, whose picture is frequently reproduced, is a surviving example.

 Now, there is a tendency, I think, for modern readers to presume that the Roman army was as uniform or consistent in its use of terminology as a modern organization.  One sees this not only in the rough and often inapposite translations of Latin terms into English in, say, historical novels, but also, I think, in the work of those scholars who presume, for example, that when an ancient writer uses a particular term, that term has the fixity one expects of terms used these days.

 To take a simple example, auxiliary cohorts or, like them, Late Roman auxilia raised among provincials or barbarians, did not continue to recruit from their places of origin once they were posted to other provinces.  Of necessity, they recruited locally.  Thus, whatever their origins, it is reasonable to assume that, for instance, the Batavi or Celtae (Late Roman auxilia both) were very soon made up of Gallic provincials or German coloni of whatever origin were found nearby.  Thus, the names of the units reflect their origins but, after a few years, not their constituents— or not so many of them. Upon reflection, no one should be surprised by an auxilium of “Batavians” made up, for the most part, of Gallic provincials, and Frankish or Alemannic coloni.   

 In a similar way, we should expect the terminology regarding other aspects of the army to have been imprecise, apart from indicating, in the most general way, the category of troops involved.  Consider the cavalry units called scutari.  Were they really distinguished from other troops because they carried shields?  Or those called armati because they were armored or armed?

 All of this is to say that we might expect to find that the term “cataphractarius” used sometimes in the sense of an entirely armored cavalryman on an armored horse, and sometimes only of an armored cavalryman whose horse was not protected.  This seems to be the sense of the word in this passage of Ammianus Marcellinus, when he describes the Emperor Julian’s swift advance on a road through a forest in his campaign in 357 against the Alamanni, who had invaded Gaul.  Ammianus’s passage mentions the Caesar Julian and his troops moving as a sort of flying column north to meet the Alamanni.  The passage runs in Latin:

 “Sed cum subsererent quidam Silvanum paulo ante magistrum peditum per conpendiosas vias, verum suspectas quia tenebris multis umbrantur, cum octo auxiliarium milibus aegre transisse, fidentius Caesar audaciam viri fortis imitari magnopere nitebatur.  Et nequa interveniat mora, adhibitis cataphractariis solis et ballistariis parum ad tuendum rectorem idoneis percurso eodem itinere Autosiodorum pervenit.”  Book XVI.2

My rather literal translation is:  

 “And when they said that a certain Silvanus, recently Master of Infantry, had with difficulty passed with eight thousand auxiliaries through short ways, truly threatening because they were darkened by many shadows, the bold Caesar strove very hard to imitate the daring of this brave man.  And, lest there be any delay, he came to Auxerre by the same way, surrounded only by scarcely enough cataphracts and crossbowmen to provide fitting protection.”

 There are several points of interest.  Julian was passing through difficult terrain, apparently along paths through woodlands as the mention of shadows implies (tenebris multis and umbrantur).  It would seem very unlikely that he advanced the better part of a hundred miles through such country with cavalry armored both horse and man.  While it is possible that he was accompanied by the very heaviest of horseman, a specialist unit, it would seem that an armored but more general-purpose cavalry was what was needed in the event of ambush or attack.  It seems quite reasonable to take cataphractarius in this context as an armored horseman, but not of the heaviest sort.  And furthermore, his accompanying troops are clearly said to have been chosen with some view to Julian’s protection.  Perhaps there is a further clue in the name of the foot soldiers that accompanied him:  ballistarii. 

 Ballistarius is variously rendered in a number of published translations of Ammianus Marcellinus.  Yong (1902) translated the term as “archers,” Hamilton (1908) as “artillerymen,” and Rolfe (1935) as “crossbowmen,” though he then states in a footnote:  “The ballistarii had charge of the ballistae, which took the place of modern artillery…” thus putting himself in Hamilton’s camp.  Can this be right?  As protection for the Caesar in a quick and stealthy advance, evidently across country and through forests paths, they could hardly have been very helpful, and even less so if they were dragging or carrying sections of, or mechanisms for, the building of catapults.

 I suggest that ballistarius should be taken to mean “crossbowman” plain and simple and this for two reasons:  first, soldiers armed with these weapons would have been effective in difficult or forested terrain and, second, crossbows were already in use at that time.  Vegetius, writing in the late fourth or early fifth century mentions a weapon called a “manuballista” or “arcuballista.” (Epitoma Rei Militaris, II.xv)  The terms mean, quite literally “hand-ballista” and “bow-ballista.” The latter is quite obviously the source for the French word for the weapon: “arbalète.”  A further proof are two reliefs from Gaul, dating probably to the fourth or fifth centuries, that show such a weapon.

 I don’t think that the case for the military use of crossbows in the Roman army by the mid-fourth century is difficult to make.  The case for a vaguer use of the term cataphractarius is perhaps more difficult.  But if we team up crossbowmen and some sort of armored cavalry advancing across country, it seems clear that the term cataphractarius, in this context at least, should mean a cavalry less heavily armored than that commonly thought of as clibanarii.  Thus, an answer to the question of what, exactly, the difference was between clibanarii and cataphractarii may simply be one of usage.  It may be that clibanarii were always armored man and horse on the Eastern model.  I suggest, however, that while the term cataphractarii may have applied sometimes to that sort of horseman, it was sometimes applied to cavalry in which only the rider was armored.  I think we should be wary of seeing the degree of uniformity we expect in modern institutions to have been a feature of the late Roman army.