Editing Cataphract (section)

==Etymology==
[[File:Orlat plaque (right, cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Close combat between soldiers in cataphract. [[Orlat plaques]], 1st century BCE.]]
[[File:Kalchayan Prince (armour).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Saka]]/[[Kangju]] cataphract armour with neck-guard. 1st century BCE. [[Khalchayan]]. [[Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan]], nb 40.<ref>{{cite book |title=KHALCHAYAN – Encyclopaedia Iranica |page=Figure 1 |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/khalchayan#prettyPhoto[content]/0/}}</ref>]]
The origin of the word is Greek. {{lang|grc|Κατάφρακτος}} ({{transliteration|grc|kataphraktos}}, {{transliteration|grc|cataphraktos}}, {{transliteration|grc|cataphractos}}, or {{transliteration|grc|katafraktos}}) is composed of the Greek root words, {{lang|grc|κατά}}, a preposition, and {{lang|grc|φρακτός}} ("covered, protected"), which is interpreted along the lines of "fully armoured" or "closed from all sides". The term first appears substantively in [[Latin]], in the writings of [[Lucius Cornelius Sisenna]]: "{{lang|la|loricatos, quos cataphractos vocant}}", meaning "the armoured, whom they call cataphract".<ref>{{cite conference|last=Nikonorov|first=Valerii P.|date=2–5 September 1998|title=Cataphracti, Catafractarii and Clibanarii: Another Look at the old problem of their Identifications|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gxMhAQAAIAAJ&q=%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%84%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B8|conference=Военная археология: оружие и военное дело в исторической и социальной перспективе. Материалы Международной конференции [Military Archeology: Weapons and Military Affairs from a Historical and Social Perspective. Proceedings of the International Conference]|location=St. Petersburg|pages=131–138}}<!-- Original title sourced from author's bibliography at http://www.archeo.ru/struktura-1/otdel-arheologii-centralnoi-azii-i-kavkaza/nikonorov-valerii-pavlovich - appears to be originally in English, though the conference title is Russian --></ref>

There appears to be some confusion about the term in the [[Late Antiquity|late Roman period]], as armoured cavalrymen of any sort that were traditionally referred to as {{lang|la|[[Equites]]}} in the [[Roman Republic|Republican period]] later became exclusively designated as "cataphracts". [[Vegetius]], writing in the fourth century, described armour of any sort as "cataphracts" – which at the time of writing would have been either {{lang|la|[[lorica segmentata]]}} or {{lang|la|[[lorica hamata]]}}. [[Ammianus Marcellinus]], Roman soldier and historian of the fourth century, mentions the "{{lang|la|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 Greek {{lang|grc|κλιβανοφόροι}} ({{transliteration|grc|klibanophoroi}}), meaning "camp oven bearers" from the Greek word {{lang|grc|κλίβανος}}, meaning "camp oven" or "metallic furnace"; the word has also been tentatively linked to the [[Middle Persian|Persian]] word for a warrior, {{lang|pal|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 armoured cataphracts as men encased in armour 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 languages|Iranian]] roots ''griva-pana-bara'', which translates into "neck-guard wearer".<ref name="Nicolle, David 1992">[[Nicolle, David]] (1992) ''Romano-Byzantine Armies, 4th–9th Centuries''. Osprey Publishing. {{ISBN|1-8553-2224-2|978-1-8553-2224-0}}</ref>

Roman chroniclers and historians [[Arrian]], [[Aelianus Tacticus|Aelian]] and [[Asclepiodotus (philosopher)|Asclepiodotus]] use the term "cataphract" in their military treatises to describe any type of cavalry with either partial or full horse and rider armour. The [[Byzantine]] historian [[Leo the Deacon|Leo Diaconis]] calls them {{lang|grc|πανσιδήρους ἱππότας}} ({{transliteration|grc|pansidearoos ippotas}}), which would translate as "fully iron-clad knights".<ref>Leo Diaconis, ''Historiae'' 4.3, 5.2, 8.9</ref>

There is, therefore, some doubt as to what exactly cataphracts were in late antiquity, and whether or not they were distinct from {{lang|la|[[clibanarii]]}}. Some historians theorise that cataphracts and {{lang|la|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 [[Latinization (literature)|Latinized]] variant of the original Greek name, {{lang|la|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 {{lang|la|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 {{lang|la|clibanarii}} were in fact a heavier type of cavalryman, or formed special-purpose units (such as the late {{lang|la|Equites [[Sagittarii]] Clibanarii}}, a Roman equivalent of [[horse archer]]s, first mentioned in the ''{{lang|la|[[Notitia Dignitatum]]}}''). Given that "cataphract" was used for more than a millennium by various cultures, it appears that different types of fully armoured 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.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}}