How well armoured was the Roman army?

[Maximinus243]

And recall that the warlords of the civil war era, Caesar, Pompey, Brutus, Antonius and so forth, were vastly wealthy men, and regarded these legions as their personal property as did, indeed, the soldiers themselves. They were raising large numbers of legions, fast. It was in their personal interest to equip these men as fully as they could, out of their own personal fortunes (plus the huge indemnities they levied on any eastern city they could intimidate). With so much at stake, literally the whole world, economy would be the last thing on their minds. The better-equipped their men were, the more likely they were to win. And after a battle, the victor would usually have all the loser's armor (of course many of the loser's men would defect as well, and were usually gladly accepted). Later, more stable governments could afford to be more stingy, not that the occasional cash donative wasn't called for from time to time.

But even a rich man cannot speed up the production process in ancient times where there is no industries to speak off. Sure, he got the money to buy enough body armour for his entire army, but where the hell is he going to find all those armour to buy from?

It would not be easy for a pre-industrialised nation to produce enough armour on the same efficiency as a industrialised nation.