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Byzantine cataphracts of the 10th century were drawn from the ranks of the middle-class landowners through the theme system, providing the Byzantine Empire with a motivated and professional force that could support its own wartime expenditures.
The Byzantine cavalrymen and their horses were superbly trained and capable of performing complex manoeuvres. While a proportion of the cataphracts appear to have been lancers or archers only, most had bows and lances. Their main tactical units were the numerus (also called at times arithmos or banda) of 300-400 men.
Unlike the Roman legions, the Byzantine army's strength was in its armoured cavalry Cataphracts, which evolved from the Clibanarii of the late empire. Its type of warfare and tactics were evolving from the Hellenistic military manuals and the Infantry were still used but mainly in support roles and as a base of maneuver for the cavalry.
As such, the treatise contains several novel aspects not touched upon in other Byzantine military manuals, such as an exact account of the formation and use of the cataphracts wedge, the new mixed infantry brigade , the proper formation of intervals between units and of how they should be guarded, and the use of the menavlon spear. The treatise ...
The Komnenian restoration of the Byzantine Empire during that century created a new kind of Byzantine army, which is known as the Komnenian army. Yet it seems that the cataphract was eventually superseded by other types of armoured cavalry. The emperor Manuel I Komnenos, for example, re-equipped his elite cavalry in the style of western knights.
The Clibanarii or Klibanophoroi (Greek: κλιβανοφόροι, meaning "camp oven-bearers" from the Greek word κλίβανος meaning "camp oven" or "metallic furnace" [citation needed]), in Persian Grivpanvar, were a Sasanian Persian, late Roman and Byzantine military unit of armored heavy cavalry.
By 1453, the Byzantine army had fallen to a regular garrison of 1,500 men in Constantinople. [8] With a supreme effort, Constantine XI succeeded in assembling a garrison of 7,000 men (included 2,000 foreigners) to defend the city against the Ottoman army. [9] Byzantine troops continued to consist of cavalry, infantry and archers.
Alexios was the son of John Komnenos and Anna Dalassene, [4] and the nephew of Isaac I Komnenos (emperor 1057–1059). Alexios' father declined the throne on the abdication of Isaac, who was thus succeeded by Constantine X Doukas (r. 1059–1067) and died as a monk in 1067.