The kontos was the Greek name for a type of long wooen cavalry lance used by Iranian, especially Achaemenid succesors' 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-mid 1st century AD from shorter spear-type weapons (which were described using the generic terms for "spear" - longche 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 tandem with light horse archers, annihilated a Roman army of over three times their numbers.