Leather Armor? (NO HOLDS BARRED!!)

[Felix]

...There is no contradiction at all. Not in all but in many of the sculptural examples you can clearly see the evidence of a muscled shape. Even some that are completely supple and draped in halves have lines delineating muscles. The artist is clearly attempting to represent the musculata. Some many be subarmalis but then we are back to the "Why is the emperor showing himself in his underwear?" problems again.

Is something that is as foldable as a sheet of canvas going to maintain a "muscular" shape? Or are we dealing with else, strong enough for pteruges to hang from, but otherwise insubstantial?

Again, both, depending on the individual example. I am arguing against generalities which are being abundantly thrown about.

Any leather thin enough to drape like some of the sculptural examples shown has no defensive value.

Put on a leather glove, then put it against a belt sander. Now try the same experiment with your bare hand. I think you will find a difference. Punctures are different of course, and of more primary concern, but they are not the only concern. The most immediate concern is reliable durable gear. Leather fits that category, otherwise braccae would not have been used. We can argue about comparative worth, but we can't argue about possible use, especially when leather has been a vital component of human dress since we started wearing clothes.

It is as much "armour" as a pith helmet was to the British army, or a pickelhaube to the Kaiser's troops.

or a gorget, or bowman's glove, or any number of things which have always traditionally been thought of as armor, whether formal, ceremonial, parade or otherwise, no mater how well they resist an arrow from 50 paces. Modern semantics however have no bearing on evidence.

I am concerned about whose modern semantics should be tested. If you take a thin leather glove (i.e. leather that will drape flat when folded), and swing a knife at a hand in said glove, it isn't going to protect much of anything. And, if I may say so, a knife test is much more akin to the stresses armour faces than a sander - which was not a common weapon in ancient times.

Under this standard we could invent any stress test and disallow any armor we choosed. I honestly don't care what modern standard you want to apply. What I care about is what the evidence shows. It shows rigid, semi-rigid, flexible and utterly supple materials with embossed features. Leather is the most likely candidate for at least the latter three out of four of those categories and perhaps the first as well.

It might well have been the crappiest armor in the history of mankind. So what? What we should do is look at the evidence and argue what is most likely based on the evidence, acknowledging full well the limitations of sculpture, but in the end, evidence should come BEFORE conclusions.

Your method is exactly the reverse. Leather armor is crappy, therefore, the Romans did not use leather armor.

Ok, how do explain the evidence? You can't, so then we get to semantical dodges. "Oh well that isn't REAL armor"

Please tell me why I should accept your opinion of what "REAL" armor is over the evidence of roman sculpture.

Consider the reverse - "leather is protective, no matter how poorly. Ergo, any article of clothing made of leather is armour". That is, I would submit, absurd.

By the way, I never said all leather is crappy; I said that leather that is thin enough and flexible enough to drape like cloth is not likely to make good protection - and anyone would, I think, agree that the protective value of 1 oz leather is not the same as 14 oz leather. The same is true of metal - metal can be protective, but a layer of gold leaf does not have the same protective value as 2 mm of steel; one may be armour and the other is not.