alt Hacker News> but it still remained inferior to bronze even in Classic Greece.
The Greeks clearly had access to bronze from the archaic period and used large amounts of it to manufacture armor. Yet they still used iron for swords and spear points. This would indicate that iron was already superior to bronze for quite a few use cases.
Yes it was stronger but fragile and less durable.
Iron was mostly perfected by Romans through their conquests as they collected and systemised iron processing tech of the nations they conquered, which all entered Iron Age by then. By the times of early Roman Empire, high quality iron spread around enough to make bronze obsolete.