I don't see any great technological difference between cataphracts and even 15th Century knights except possibly stirrups which appear at the latest by the 6th Century. The main difference was tactical - the Romans used cataphracts as part of a combined arms force whereas in western medieval europe knights were regarded as the core of the army.
The same applies to crossbows, they were already in use by the Byzantines in the 6th Century and filtered back to western europe with the crusaders. I think the chinese used them even earlier.
>Iron age saw the emergence of Cavalry as the major offensive arm as
>opposed to chariots. Cataphracts are a good parallel to the knights of the
>latter days. Both men and horses vere armoured, and the cavalry was the
>most powerful unit on the battlefield.
>
>With this approach the warbands of the Heortlings and the hoplites and
>sarissa phalanxes of the solars fit very nicely.
>
>An important motivation in this is that the low tech feel is an important
>asset of Glorantha. The world is full of medieval and pseudo-medieal
>RPG:s, but very few set in earlier days.
I don't think you can keep the low tech feel you describe unless you exclude all the early medieval stuff as well - drop all the viking analogies and merely allow technology up to the 1st or 2nd centuries AD. That peak of Roman technology wasn't exceeded until the late middle ages when gunpowder appears in europe.
>While on the subject I also take a more orthodox approach to the castes in
>the West. Greg must have been pretty confused about the basic feodal
>structure when he started writing his Glorantha stories in the University.
>Even in modern Glorantha the nobility don't seem to have much to do with
>their traditional occupation, warfare. Nobility as a purely ruling class,
>and knights as a totally separete class seems very, very confused to me.
>
>Nobility are the elite arm in warfare. Knights are nobles, and nobles are
>knights. Just the implications for population structure are staggering. If
>nobles just sit in manors and castles and rule folk, the world will start
>to get full of superfluous nobility (good food, lower child mortality,
>long lifespan because of nutrition and light workload). Nobility that
>doesn't earn it's keep in war is a very strange concept.
I think Greg's merely simplifying real world feudalism. Most feudal societies had an elaborate hierarchy of nobility with the highest ranks reserved for a few families. While those people would take to the battlefield it would be as leaders rather than part of a cavalry unit. Superfluous nobility aren't a problem if only one son can inherit the father's rank - the rest drop down the social scale to become knights.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/ ------------------------------
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