Kontos

The kontos is a long, heavy cavalry lance associated with Hellenistic heavy cavalry and, later, with the armored cataphract horsemen of the Parthian and Sarmatian peoples of the steppe and Persian world, generally measuring several meters in length and wielded with both hands rather than braced one-handed like a lighter cavalry spear. Its length and weight required a rider to guide the mount primarily with his legs, and its two-handed grip concentrated the combined momentum of horse and rider into a single forward thrust intended to break through an opposing infantry line or unhorse an opposing cavalryman, a shock-cavalry role quite different from the shorter throwing and thrusting spears used by ancient infantry. Historians of ancient warfare treat the kontos and its use by Sarmatian and Parthian cataphracts as an important precursor to the long couched lance later associated with medieval European heavy cavalry, transmitted westward in part through Rome's military contact with these eastern heavy cavalry traditions.