Gladius Romae Sum, Belisarius
The Kavallarioi
This is a force for Impetus based on the army Belisarius took into North Africa and against the Sassanids. In the army there will be eight units of Cavalry split between six units of Kavallarioi and two units of Buokellarioi. I’ll look at the Boukellarioi in the next post.
The Kavallarioi were the medium Cavalry although they are a bit more interesting than just that. They wore a maille shirt (chain or scale) and a helmet and primarily fought with a spear but they also carried a composite bow. Traditionally when we think of mainline cavalry we think of them either as melee troops in armour or as lightly armoured horse archers but the Late Romans combined these roles. They still used heavy shock cavalry but even those were modified by Belisarius personally to create bow armed heavy shock cavalry, the Boukellarioi.
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