How stuppid would it be to want a iron Squamata???

[Sean Manning]

It appears that the Greeks used scale as part of their linothorax cuirass.

Yes that's what I mend, I only coulnd find the word for it...
But from where did they get the idea?
And from whom got the Romans that idea, the Greeks?

Scale armour was invented in southwest Asia during the early 2nd milennium BCE. It spread with the technology of chariot warfare across a pretty wide area. There are one or two examples of Mycenaean armour scales but I don't know if it continued in use during the Dark Age. The Scythians, Assyrians, Persians, and so on used it fairly extensively in the early Iron Age and the Greeks probably borrowed it from them. I'm not sure where the Romans learned of it.