Me: the Greek historians are some of the richest sources we have for antiquity, and we should celebrate every part of this magnificent tradition Also me: wow Polybios is fucking annoying
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Like really the debate over why Polybios doesn't describe chainmail in detail and whether the Romans really adopted it from the Greeks and not the Celts rages to this day.
I think, absent surprising new finds, the concordance of the archaeology and the statements in the literary sources has mostly put this argument to bed - particularly now with components of the lorica hamata (the fasteners) from Baecula. It was the Gauls.
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The only remaining sticky question is how it got to the Greeks, via the Galatians (suggested by the Athena Nikephoros Pergamon relief) or via the Romans (strongly implied by Plb. 31.3, suggested by the Pydna monument, etc). I favor a "yes, and.." approach to this question.
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In that the Greeks will have first seen mail on small numbers of (mostly mounted) Galatian aristocrats, but given that mail is presented both in artwork and by Polybius as quintessentially Roman, wide dispersal probably does have to wait for the Romans.
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