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Pollice verso or verso pollice (Classical Latin: [ˈpɔlʲːɪke ˈu̯ɛrs̠oː]) is a Latin phrase, meaning "with a turned thumb", that is used in the context of gladiatorial combat. It refers to a hand gesture or thumb signal used by Ancient Roman crowds to pass judgment on a defeated gladiator following duels in colloseums.

The precise gesture described by the phrase pollice verso, and its meaning, are the subject of scholarly debate.

According to Anthony Corbeill, a classical studies professor who has extensively researched the practice, thumbs up signalled killing a gladiator, while "a closed fist with a wraparound thumb" meant sparing him.

Zoologist Desmond Morris describes human gestures of this type to be culturally determined and transmitted.

Meaning

The reason for the supremacy of the thumb over the other digits was debated even in ancient times. Roman provincial Macrobius observed that the name of the thumb (pollex) was derived from the Latin word for power (polleo). Another explanation is based on the thumb's unsuitability for the adornment of rings, thereby making it morally superior to the other fingers. Lactantius emphasized its utility and funcionality, along with its strength and size. According to Fulgentius, the outstretched thumb paralleled other organs which were considered apatropaic, and like them it was seen as capable of warding off evil.

Ancient Rome

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The exact gesture described by the phrase pollice verso is unclear. From historical, archaeological, and literary records it is uncertain whether the thumb was turned up, turned down, held horizontally, or concealed inside the hand to indicate positive or negative opinions. Horace writes of a gesture using both thumbs to applaud a sporting event, though his exact meaning is unclear. According to Encyclopaedia Romana, Corbeill, who gave the most extensive discussion of the topic, translates Pliny's pollices premere as "pressing of the thumbs". According to his conclusion a merciful gesture consisted of the pressing of the thumb on the index finger of a closed fist, and a negative gesture signifying death, called infesto pollice by Quintilian, consists of an "erect thumb pointing upward". The definition of pollex in the Latin dictionary of Lewis and Short follows Corbeill's conclusion.

Juvenal uses verso pollice in the Satires:

Prudentius mentions the thumb gesture (converso pollice), used by a Vestal virgin who delights in the carnage:

In popular culture

The notion of the pollice verso thumb signal was brought to modern popular attention by an 1872 painting by French history painter Jean-Léon Gérôme entitled Pollice Verso (usually translated into English as Thumbs Down). It is a large canvas that depicts the Vestal Virgins signifying to a murmillo that they decree death on a fallen gladiator in the arena. The picture was purchased from Gérôme by U.S. department-store magnate Alexander Turney Stewart, who exhibited it in New York City, and it is now in the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona.

The painting almost immediately kicked off a controversy over the accuracy of Gerome's use of the thumbs-down gesture by spectators in the Colosseum. A 26-page pamphlet published in 1879, "Pollice Verso": To the Lovers of Truth in Classic Art, This is Most Respectfully Addressed, reprinted evidence for and against the accuracy of the painting, including a letter dated 8 December 1878 from Gérôme himself. Gérôme's painting greatly popularized the idea that thumbs up signaled life, and thumbs down signaled death, for a defeated gladiator. The gesture is used in many movies about Ancient Rome, including the 2000 film Gladiator, in which the Roman emperor Commodus uses a thumbs-up to spare the life of the film's hero, Maximus.

Pollice Verso is also the title of a controversial 1904 drawing of the Crucifixion by Australian artist Norman Lindsay, depicting Christ being rejected by nude pagans.

References

1. Koerner, Brendan (28 March 2003). "What does a "thumbs up" mean in Iraq?". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
2. Where Does the 'Thumbs-Up' Gesture Really Come From?, Time
3. "Desmond Morris On Symbolic Gestures". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-05-03.
4. ^ "Pollice Verso". penelope.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2024-12-08.
5. James Grout: The Gladiator and the Thumb, part of the Encyclopædia Romana
6. Desmond Morris, Peter Collett, Peter Marsh, and Marie O'Shaughnessy, 1979 Webified by Bernd Wechner: Gestures: Their Origin and Meanings, The Thumb Up
7. "DID THE ROMANS TURN THUMBS DOWN ON GLADIATORS?". www.news.ku.edu.
8. Juvenal, Satirae 3.34-37
9. Juvenal Satires, translated by George Gilbert Ramsay (1839–1921)
10. Prudentius. Reply to Symmachus, Book II, in Prudentius Volume II, translated by H. J. Thomson, Loeb Classical Library 398, pp. 93-95.
11. "Pollice Verso": To the Lovers of Truth in Classic Art, This is Most Respectfully Addressed, pamphlet dated April 10, 1879, Paris.
12. Spier, Christine (2010-08-06). "Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down? Looking at Gérôme's "Pollice Verso"". blogs.getty.edu/iris. Retrieved 2019-06-09.
13. "National Gallery of Australia".

Further reading

• Anthony Corbeill. "Thumbs in Ancient Rome: Pollex as Index" in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 42, 1997, pp. 61–81.
• Anthony Corbeill. Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome, Princeton University Press, 2004. 978-0-691-07494-8
• Desmond Morris. Gestures: Their Origin and Distribution, 1979.

External links

• "Pollice Verso": To the Lovers of Truth in Classic Art, This is Most Respectfully Addressed, 26-page pamphlet published in 1879 reprinting evidence for and against the accuracy of Gérôme's painting, including a letter dated 8 December 1878 from Gérôme himself.
• "Pollice Verso", article by Edwin Post in American Journal of Philology, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1892), pp. 213–225, online at LacusCurtius
• "The Gladiator and the Thumb"
• "Pollice Verso" at Phoenix Art Museum

• Culture of ancient Rome
• Gladiatorial combat
• Latin words and phrases
• Hand gestures