Leather Cuirass

[Magnus]

Magnus thinks leather musculata are just ridiculous; I'm inclined to see leather segmentata much more in that light (not terribly relevant to us Greeks) while thinking that leather would lend itself quite well to being moulded into an image of the perfect male physique. While leather ( and here I'm including, possibly, hide/rawhide) may not be as effective as padded, layered or quilted linen for stopping arrows, it does, nonetheless have very good defensive qualities, especially in "turning" pointed and edged blades, and even more so if it has been boiled during the moulding process.

I disagree...at least for leather's defensive capabilities. If used as a solid piece it sucks. Used as lamellar, either late roman, japanese, whatever, then it works. But that technology/inovation wasn't available to the greeks at this point.

It takes a lot of work to take a piece of hide and make it into a useable piece of leather...linen was far more economical.