Kontos (weapon)

The kontos (Greek:κοντός) was the Greek name for a type of long wooden cavalry lance used by Iranian, especially Achaemenid successors' cavalry, most notably cataphracts. It was also used by the Germanic warriors of the south as a pike. A shift in the terminology used to describe Sarmatian weapons indicates the kontos was developed in the early to mid 1st century AD from shorter spear-type weapons (which were described using the generic terms for "spear" — longhe or hasta — by Greek and Roman sources, respectively), though such a description may have existed before the Battle of Carrhae, in which Parthian cataphracts, in conjunction with light horse archers, annihilated a Roman army of over three times their numbers.