If you caught the movie "Gladiator II" or the original from 2000 and wondered if Roman soldiers actually wore those little skirts that Pedro Pascal or Russell Crowe had on in these movies, they did. "Gladiator" played fast and loose with history, but it did get a few things right — like the emperor Commodus being a truly nasty guy. The armor the characters wore was another relatively accurate detail. The skirt was made from strips of either stiffened linen or leather, called "pteruges" (also written "pteryges").

They were typically attached to a subarmalis, a kind of undergarment made of either linen, felt, or leather that Roman soldiers wore under their armor. In some cases, the strips of leather were attached to metal body armor called lorica squamata that resembled scales. Pteruges w

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