Quote Originally Posted by Aymar de Bois Mauri
Quote Originally Posted by keravnos
I think horse armor fragments have been found in Iberia. Which means that either Romani used Cataphracts to subdue the Iberian peoples, and especially the Lusotan, or that Lusotann used them for their own.
Sorry, but you're totally off the mark.

1) The Romans only got interested in cataphracts after they had run into trouble against the Parthians near the time of Carrae.
A small addition:

Roman cataphracts appeared even later in history. The first known Roman cataphract unit is "Ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum catafracta", from an inscription (CIL 11, 05632 ) metioning it's existence in Hadrianic times (ca. 118 -136 AD), after the first wars with sarmatians on the danube frontier and Trajan's parthian war. One thing that can probably be credited to be a result of carrhae and the first Roman parthian wars is the introduction of horse archers into the Roman army.