But when in 378 A.D., a mighty Roman emperor was surrounded and crushed by barbarian horsemen in a Balkan valley not more than 150 miles from Constantinople, the infantry and the legion did not look unbeatable any more. The Byzantines decided not to rely on it. So first Caesar would have seen a large array of well-equipped men on sturdy chargers. These were the heavy cavalry, later known as _cataphracts_. They were as renowned as any Byzantine troops. They wore steel caps, and on each cap was a crest showing the colors of that _bandon_, or horse regiment. They also wore long mail shirts, steel gauntlets, steel shoes, and sometimes a light surcoat. Even the horses, at least those of the officers and the men in the front rank, had steel head armor and breastplates. For weapons, each man had a broadsword, a dagger, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and a long lance with a banderole, also in the _bandon_ colors. They could charge like knights, or by acting as bowmen, they could fight a distant enemy. Then Caesar would have seen the light troopers, or _trapezidae_. These too were cavalry, but they were the light cavalry. They did carry shields, but for body armor they wore only a cuirass of very light mail or horn. For weapons, they had only a lance and a sword. There was still infantry in the Byzantine army, but it was now pretty unimportant. It was used mostly for holding ground which the cavalry had won. But even the infantry was divided into two groups. The heavy infantry were about as well armored as the _cataphracts_. For weapons, they carried a short, heavy battle ax and a dagger. They could stand off a barbarian cavalry charge. The light infantry wore no armor, but carried long-range bows. The Byzantine method of fighting was something like the German blitzkrieg, with cavalry taking the place of swiftly moving tanks and the foot soldiers following behind. The Byzantines did much more than change their army into something swift and moving, however. They did more than divide the old clumsy legion into smaller units almost like our modern regiments, battalions, companies, and platoons. They spent a lot of time thinking about the whole business of fighting and may even have been the inventors of carefully planned strategy. They would not have been at all surprised at our modern war colleges where even generals are taught in the classroom what to do on the field of battle. As a matter of fact, at least three Byzantine emperors wrote very good books on the art of war. These books included much more than just how to equip and drill an army. They also told the general exactly how he should fight his battles, and they emphasized that he must have a different kind of warfare for each different kind of foe.