Peltast the late 11th and 12th centuries. Although the peltasts of Antiquity were light skirmish infantry armed with javelins, it is not safe to assume that the troops given this name in the Byzantine period were identical in function. Byzantine peltasts were sometimes described as “assault troops”. Byzantine peltasts appear to have been relatively lightly equipped soldiers capable of great battlefield mobility, who could skirmish but who were equally capable of close combat. Their arms may have included a shorter version of the "kontarion" spear employed by contemporary Byzantine heavy infantry. Peltast A peltast (Ancient Greek: πελταστής "peltastes") was a type
Classification of Thracian Dacian which he regards as belonging to a separate language family as Thraco-Armenian. Older textbooks grouped Phrygian and Armenian with Thracian, but the belief is no longer popular and is mostly discarded. Today, Phrygian is not widely seen as linked to Thracian. Georgiev claimed that Thracian is different from Phrygian "as much as Greek from Albanian", comparing 150 Phrygian inscriptions. Duridanov found in 1976 Phrygian completely lacking parallels in Thracian and concluded that the Thraco-Phrygian theory is debunked. Duridanov argued that the Thraco-Illyrian theory is a mistake of the past: "In the past it was regarded that Thracian together with