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Though there have been mentions of heavy cavalry forces in Assyrian armies, the true evolution of the cavalry as the shock force in the battlefield was started by Iranian tribes like Massagetae. Overtime, such tactics were adopted by the Achaemenids, and finally they reached pinnacle under the Parthians (and later the Sassanids), when they fielded dedicated elite cavalry corps (like cataphracts) in the battlefield as the mobile yet hard-hitting striking force. These heavily armored cavalrymen were known as Savaran, and as such they were an integral part the social hierarchy of the later Sassanid empire – with the members being only chosen from Azadan noble class (who were deemed to be the descendants of the original Aryans settled in Iran). This hierarchy does somewhat mirror the knightly class that emerged from Europe during the middle ages.However, the immediate influence of the heavy Persian cavalry was mainly felt on the various proximate cultures, like the Seleucids, the Eastern Romans, and even the Arabs. These factions in turn developed their own variants of the cataphract model, with variable successes in the battlefield. And interestingly, the code of honor and chivalry (along with jousts) might have also come from Savaran culture of antiquity, which presumably made its way into the Islamic Faris ‘furusiyya‘ code, and ultimately into realms of the Western Europeans.
6 Amazing Things You Probably Didn’t Know About The Persians Empire
5) The military culture of heavy cavalry lancers was transmitted to Romans via Persia
Though there have been mentions of heavy cavalry forces in Assyrian armies, the true evolution of the cavalry as the shock force in the battlefield was started by Iranian tribes like Massagetae. Overtime, such tactics were adopted by the Achaemenids, and finally they reached pinnacle under the Parthians (and later the Sassanids), when they fielded dedicated elite cavalry corps (like cataphracts) in the battlefield as the mobile yet hard-hitting striking force. These heavily armored cavalrymen were known as Savaran, and as such they were an integral part the social hierarchy of the later Sassanid empire – with the members being only chosen from Azadan noble class (who were deemed to be the descendants of the original Aryans settled in Iran). This hierarchy does somewhat mirror the knightly class that emerged from Europe during the middle ages.However, the immediate influence of the heavy Persian cavalry was mainly felt on the various proximate cultures, like the Seleucids, the Eastern Romans, and even the Arabs. These factions in turn developed their own variants of the cataphract model, with variable successes in the battlefield. And interestingly, the code of honor and chivalry (along with jousts) might have also come from Savaran culture of antiquity, which presumably made its way into the Islamic Faris ‘furusiyya‘ code, and ultimately into realms of the Western Europeans.
Though there have been mentions of heavy cavalry forces in Assyrian armies, the true evolution of the cavalry as the shock force in the battlefield was started by Iranian tribes like Massagetae. Overtime, such tactics were adopted by the Achaemenids, and finally they reached pinnacle under the Parthians (and later the Sassanids), when they fielded dedicated elite cavalry corps (like cataphracts) in the battlefield as the mobile yet hard-hitting striking force. These heavily armored cavalrymen were known as Savaran, and as such they were an integral part the social hierarchy of the later Sassanid empire – with the members being only chosen from Azadan noble class (who were deemed to be the descendants of the original Aryans settled in Iran). This hierarchy does somewhat mirror the knightly class that emerged from Europe during the middle ages.However, the immediate influence of the heavy Persian cavalry was mainly felt on the various proximate cultures, like the Seleucids, the Eastern Romans, and even the Arabs. These factions in turn developed their own variants of the cataphract model, with variable successes in the battlefield. And interestingly, the code of honor and chivalry (along with jousts) might have also come from Savaran culture of antiquity, which presumably made its way into the Islamic Faris ‘furusiyya‘ code, and ultimately into realms of the Western Europeans.