Leather Armor? (NO HOLDS BARRED!!)

[tlclark]

So what other function could they serve? As armour they don't work. Even the heaviest flexible leather offers little protection from blunt trauma and virtually no protection from weapon points.

The argument about blunt trauma is irrelevant. Hamata & squamata don't offer significant protection against blunt force trauma either so that's not a consideration. Even a segmentata is brutal without a subarmalis and no one is arguing that these were worn without a subarmalis.

As far as puncture resistance I have to disagree. I have seem many a pair of 'leathers' protect or save people from some nasty impalings by metal tools, many of which would have points or edges as serious as any gladius. I doubt that an arrow could puncture it, but arrows have been known to puncture plate as well. The French Knights at Avignon had the best plate armor protection available and it was still inadequate to the English long bow. And the puncture resistance of mail is also debated, So I'm not sure inadequate puncture protection is a major consideration.

It also underestimates how subjective judgements on armor can be. I think that body armor could more likely than not be thought of as a last defense, a stop gap measure. I'd bet even money that if you asked a legionnaire which he'd rather do without, the lorica or the shield he'd be just as likely to keep the shield and ditch the armor. Medieval pikemen and the macedonian sarissa weilders often had no armor at all. The distance provided by the spear was their armor.

I'm not sure that a well-trained spearman with a shield and no armor wasn't safer than a raw recruit with the very best armor. Put a general behind a bodyguard, and all considerations like those might disappear, but even then officer's got overrun and the leather armor would work fairly well, if not perfect, if he was in a pinch. Until then, aesthetic concerns of rank and status outweighs concerns of protection, but that doesn't mean they were worthless.

Two things make me think so.

1.) We see these not only on emperors, but on officers as well. I can't believe the officers would have totally worthless armor. It may not have been the best, but it must have had some utility, otherwise the armor wouldn't be such a big part of the iconography.

2.) The development of the musculata. When we see the earliest musculata, they look almost exactly like the linothorax. Only later do they take on the muscled form. If you've been reading the padded armor thread, then you know that I think that the subarmalis was essentially a linothorax with attached pteruges. In fact, when we see the musculata in trophies, or thrown over tree stumps, the pteruges are always there, suggesting that the subarmalis (if we assume that the pteruges were attached to it) was considered such a contingent part of the cuirass it couldn't be excluded. Now if the subarmalis was as effective as a linothorax, then any addition to that, would only be a plus.

Travis