I was reading the wiki article on the Battle of Marathon and a reason cited for the victory of the Athenians over the Persians in close-combat is the equipment advantage, namely that of armour.
The Persian infantry was evidently lightly armoured, and no match for hoplites in a head-on confrontation (as would be demonstrated at the later battles of Thermopylae and Plataea.)
This seems to imply that the Hoplites were heavily armoured, and yet it later mentions:
Most scholars believe that the Greeks had better equipment and used superior tactics. According to Herodotus, the Greeks were better equipped. They did not use bronze upper body armour at this time, but that of leather or linen.
Is that meant to imply that being clad in linens and leather is not "lightly armoured" as the Persians were?
Now, I realize that the article seems to imply occasionally, but not outright state that a large portion of the Persian Forces were actually light archers instead of infantry suited for close combat, and that equipment was not only limited to the armor, but also to weaponry and shields that the hoplites used in phalanges.
Now this is even more difficult for me to parse through, as the Heavy Greek Infantry of the time are well documented and have an easy name to search for: Hoplites, even if they also fielded a great number of Helots.
But the closest Persian equivalent (Immortals) did not really represent as large of a portion of the Persian army, so I can't really get a sense of the equipment of the main force apart from the stubs on Sparabara and Takabara, who appeared to wear.... linens and leather.
I guess my questions are:
What kind of armor were the Persians wearing and was it worse than the Greek's at that battle?
How effective were linen and leather for their time? Could a better linen armor really give an advantage?
Were the Persians there actually composed mainly of archers as some citations seem to claim?
Boring answer: we don't really know. The Immortals and at least a portion of the cavalry were probably clad in some form of heavy scale armor, based on Herodotos and some fragmentary archaeological discoveries. Herodotos indicates that Persian and Median troops were heavily armored, while other contingents were lightly armored missile troops - but his account is mainly ethnographic.
The few points of reference we have indicate that Persian infantry was relatively conservative, drawing on the Assyrian model of large numbers of missile troops (even the Immortals were archers as much as spearfighters) backed up by the formidable Iranian cavalry.
In any event, linen armor would have been pretty effective against light archery. Arrows could still bruise and exhaust but not necessarily kill or disable without a lucky hit. A battery of missiles might've been able to set a Greek army up for a rout - but if terrain or other concerns meant that such a rout could not be achieved, the battle might well turn into a melee slog where Greek infantry would have an edge against regular, non-elite contingents. Add in the attrition of travel and residing in hostile country and you can see how the Greeks would be able to hold on.
That said, the Wikipedia article isn't very good and draws on a very dated and stereotyped view of the wars. The main concern in any discussion of them should probably be the utter nightmare of logistics that the Persian campaign must have been.