Cataphract

Those fighting before the standards, around the standards and (otherwise) in the front line were called principes [i.e. the centurions and the other under-officers]. This was the heavy armament, which had helmets, cataphracts, greaves, shields, large swords called spathae, and other smaller swords called semispathia, [...]

Carmine streaks stained their limbs, their tunics and cataphracts; but little of the blood was theirs. They did not move like people with injuries.

And first we must call attention to the fact that two classes of vessels appear to have been employed, distinguished by the name of "Aphract," unfenced, or "Cataphract," fenced, according as the rowers of the upper tier were protected or exposed. Both classes were decked and floored, but the "Aphract" class carried their decks and flooring lower than the "Cataphract," so that in them the rowers of the upper tier were visible above the side of the vessel; [...] [F]rom the time of the invention by the Thasians of this system, all the larger vessels of war used by both Greeks and Romans were Cataphract. In the Cataphract trireme, the space allowed for each oarsman was, according to [B.] Graser, eight square feet per man, and this proportion was observed in the larger vessels up to the octireme.

The ancients either called these ships by their class name (a number plus the -eres root) or by a descriptive term "cataphract" (kataphraktos) which means something like "armored" or "fenced" in the sense of having reinforced decks and sides to protect the oarcrew from missiles and deck-fighting. Because "The Age of Titans" involved galleys whose signature feature was their larger than normal size, and because cataphract galleys could comprise small ships that were protected by extra planking, I frequently employ another term to describe these ships, namely, "big" or "large," from the Greek megala skaphe and its variants megalai nees (big ships) and megista skaphe (biggest ships).

He who lookes you in the face, ſaith he ſees you, though the reſt of your bodie be within your cloathes, and if you, being an ὁωλομάχος a cataphract in your proteſtantiſh πανοπλία [panoplía, suit of armour] should for fear pull downe your beuer before you come into the liſt, your Aduerſarie for all that might light vpon your (  ) vnleſſe you bring with you Giges his ring, ſo to make your ſelf inuiſible; [...]

Immediately / Was Samſon as a public ſervant brought, / In thir ſtate Livery clad; before him Pipes / and Timbrels, on each ſide went armed guards, / Both horſe and foot before him and behind / Archers, and Slingers, Cataphracts and Spears.

Lucullus also had these [the cavalry of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia] in his army at the siege of Tigranocerta; and in the battle with Tigranes made choice of them and the Thracian horse to attack the Cataphracts, the choicest of the enemy's cavalry, and to drive them from the ground.

Ælian calls the heavy-armed infantry, ὁπλίται, hoplitæ; and the heavy horse soldiers, καταφρακτοι, cataphracti;—we denominate the former completely-armed troops, and the latter cuirassiers.— [...] The cuirassiers carried targets and used pikes. The Parthian cataphracts had also bows and arrows.

Besides the equestrian archers who fought flying, and wearied out an enemy by often renewed assaults, they had heavy cataphracts or cuirassiers clad in the steel of Margiana (a province immediately eastward of Parthia,) armed with long lances, and bearing a wonderful resemblance in all points to the chivalrous warriors of the middle ages.

[...] Tacitus (Hist. I, 79) says that the Sarmatian cataphracts were rather helpless if knocked off their horses, just like the mediaeval knights. The chief difference was, that whereas the mediaeval knight was armoured all over, the cataphract had no thigh armour under his coat, I suppose because he was riding without stirrups and grip was all-important; it may have been this which led to the invention of stirrups.