Leather Cuirass

[Paullus Scipio]

For Dan : No you couldn't !! --- but a pardonable exaggeration to make a point. My point here is that Greek armourers were technologically advanced ( for example their bronze is better in many ways than modern phosphor bronze ), and clearly knew their business. They developed equipment which could successfully resist hand-blows with kinetic energy of the order of, say, 30-40 joule, but it was sufficiently thin and light that it wouldn't resist much more. Fortunately for Greek history, when the Persians came along, their archery technology, optimised for use against horse nomads, their most common foe (arrowheads, shafts, ) also delivered kinetic energy of around 30-35 joules at target at around 50 metres.Thus Greek hoplite armour was adequate for the task, and once matters got hand-to-hand........
( By the way these figures are arrived at using a "ballistic pendulum" i.e. a yielding target, not a rigid one ).
As to what could happen if a foe with a more powerful bow was encountered, we have the anecdotes of Xenophon (Carduchian bows ) and Plutarch ( Indian arrow penetrating Alexander's armour ).
That the borderline was a bit "iffy" is implied by the rapid spread of scale re-inforcements shown in Art at the time of the Persian Wars.

You also took my previous post a little too seriously --- I was simply demonstrating that a leather 'segmentata' type armour did co-exist with Legionary armour. Did anyone ever wonder why learned historians and interpreters of the Column concluded that the armour depicted was leather ? My point here is that with the column alone as evidence, it was logical to reach that conclusion, given that armour of that type was so clearly depicted.