There are currently more comments in this thread wondering about the deleted comments in this thread than any other sort. Please, STOP THAT.

Comments in this subreddit are routinely removed for not adhering to our rules; namely, for not being in-depth, comprehensive answers such as a historian might give. So if you are coming to this thread with your guesses, speculation, or assumptions, please keep them to yourself and wait patiently until someone who can adequately and accurately answer the question arrives.

Thank you.

I assume you're talking about this kind of "gladiator sandal." That image has come from a combination of caligae, as worn by roman soldiers, and puttees. Footwrappings that wind up the legs are a common motif in depictions of soldiers in the past, which colors our ideas of what ancient soldiers would wear. Puttees, which are long strips of cloth that wrap around the ankle and calf, were actually worn at least as recently as WWII.

In short, there's little real advantage to boots with leather that winds so high up the leg. I've never heard of armor being tied to the legs at all, either.

Above all else, though, remember this: Rome's history spans over a thousand years, and so there are few definitive answers about what was or wasn't "in Roman [times/culture/philosophy/government]."

Just for funsies, here's a preserved caliga from egypt.

As a follow up question: Did they even wear the kind of sandals that were tied high that OP mentions, or is that something we've gotten from the movies?