\"Celtic\" military technology and the Romans

[Dan Howard]

Mail was the most versatile, longlived, and widespread type of armour ever invented. It saw continual use by virtually every metal-using culture on the planet for the best part of two thousand years. It absolutely improved a soldier's chances of survival compared to other types of armour available at the time. The only question is whether the Romans adopted it from the Gauls. Roman authors seem to have believed that it was Gallic. Regarding helmets, the Romans used a variety of different typologies and I'm not sure whether any particular one offered more chances of survival over another, so, for this argument, it wouldn't really be relevant whether any of them were adopted from the Gauls.