Metal plate beneath Linothorakes or Spolades

[Matthew Amt]

in the prototype text - the Spartan was killed by an arrow. It does not say anything about penetration.
The arrow might got him in an exposed place.

Bingo. You see a lot of that in medieval sources, too--armored men getting wounded or killed, with no mention of the armor itself being penetrated. I think we should avoid getting into the same old argument of weapons or arrows versus armor. They've been fought way too long and hard on many different discussion boards, and I think all that we can reasonably conclude is that most armor was effective against most weapons most of the time.

My opinion is that in absence of conclusive evidence all hypotheses are valid (till proven wrong)

Huh, that seems backwards to me! I take evidence as valid, and sometimes conclusive, whereas hypotheses that lack evidence, or fly in the face of it, are often a waste of breath.

But...who can deny that that family who could not afford full metal armor would not go to the extra effort and expence to reinforce the linothrax of the father, son, or husvand who would risk life and doom..... I am not strong supporter of this but I do not find it improbable either....

But we know that thousands of warriors from many cultures went to battle with less than the maximum amount of armor they might have had! For instance, in the Greek Archaic period we see plenty of thigh guards and armguards, but those mostly disappear in the Classical era. At least some of these are men who are perfectly well-to-do, whose wives and kids have nice clothes, and who have bronze cookware, private homes, slaves, etc. You can't convince me that they spent every last dime on every piece of armor they could afford, to the point of mortgaging the house and going on short rations. They don't strap dinner plates or spoons to their limbs. They already had the options of bronze cuirasses, or linen or leather cuirasses without scales, or with some scales, or with a lot of scales. Heck, by the date of this find, mail is an option, too, and probably a few types of lamellar armor. There is simply no reason to think that someone invented the idea of hiding plates inside an organic cuirass, just to get a little more protection out of it.

One more thing springs to mind--if this particular piece of bronze was made to go inside something leather or linen, presumably riveted in, why go to the effort of riveting 2 pieces together first?? Why not just rivet or lace them in place individually?

Experience has showed that most individuals err towards maximum affordable protection.

Not so at all. History is FILLED with examples of warriors deliberately going into combat with less armor than they could have, sometimes willingly removing pieces of armor before battle. Sometimes they died because of it. The idea that everyone going to war back then made every effort to be as well protected as possible is an entirely modern idea, completely contradicted by the historical record.

The whole "linothorax/spolas with hidden bronze plates" is a completely modern idea, too. Any chance we can drop it until some real evidence turns up?

Valete,

Matthew