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[Giannis K. Hoplite]

The word for highly polished is "???????????". Xenophon in the spartan constitution says: "??? ?????? ??????: ??? ??? ??????? ??????????? ??? ??????????? ??????????." meaning "and bronze shield: for both it quickly gets polished and it slowly tarnishes." obviously meaning that it needs repolishing and cleaning,but it's easy to polish it quickly(especially if you have a helot doing it for you) and i bet it tarnishes slower than rawhide,since we have bronze shield faces in good condition even today! Patinized bronze doesn't need repolishing. Have you seen anyone polishing statues regularly? In the greek literature there are numerous indications that armour had to be polished and repolished. The supposition that polished armour wasn't practical is illogical since armour through the ages was in most occasions polished. Not to mention that an archaic or early classical armour would very seldom see regular use!
Similarly to the armour preservation, you will find the exact range of patinae on bronze mirrors. And surely all of them meant to be highly polished once!

Anyway,we must agree to disagree. My warning though wasn't towards stopping to criticize re-enactors! Nor stop having your own views of course! There are many things re-enactors could and should be criticized about. But as you see,i didn't quote re-enactors in any of my posts. What i'm saying is that you can have your own views of course, and some may be assumptions as we all make our own assumptions,but you can't hottly criticize re-enactors for something that is only your assumption,without offering some evidence. And no,i don't consider museum photos of helmets with a fine patina as evidence.
On my part,i did support this particular practice of most re-enactors to polish their bronze equipment and i offered my evidence,both artistic and literally. And there is more of it,if you ask for it.
Khaire
Giannis