pollice verso

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 ({{lang|la|pollex}}) was derived from the Latin word for power ({{lang|la|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 functionality, along with its strength and size.{{Cite web |title=Pollice Verso |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/polliceverso.html |access-date=2024-12-08 |website=penelope.uchicago.edu}} 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.

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The exact gesture described by the phrase {{Lang|la|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.[http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/polliceverso.html James Grout: The Gladiator and the Thumb, part of the Encyclopædia Romana][http://bernd.wechner.info/Hitchhiking/Thumb Desmond Morris, Peter Collett, Peter Marsh, and Marie O'Shaughnessy, 1979 Webified by Bernd Wechner: Gestures: Their Origin and Meanings, The Thumb Up]{{cite web|url=http://www.news.ku.edu/1997/97N/SepNews/Sept29/thumbs.html|title=DID THE ROMANS TURN THUMBS DOWN ON GLADIATORS?|website=www.news.ku.edu}} 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 {{lang|la|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:

The notion of the {{Lang|la|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.

File:Pollice Verso--pamphlet--Paris--1879.jpg

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.[https://books.google.com/books?id=mrA1qmZQk2sC "Pollice Verso": To the Lovers of Truth in Classic Art, This is Most Respectfully Addressed], pamphlet dated April 10, 1879, Paris. 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.{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/thumbs-up-or-thumbs-down-looking-at-geromes-pollice-verso/|title=Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down? Looking at Gérôme's "Pollice Verso"|last=Spier|first=Christine|date=2010-08-06|website=blogs.getty.edu/iris|access-date=2019-06-09}}

{{Lang|la|Pollice Verso}} is also the title of a controversial 1904 drawing of the Crucifixion by Australian artist Norman Lindsay,{{cite web|url=http://www.nga.gov.au/federation/Detail.cfm?WorkID=26258|title=National Gallery of Australia}} depicting Christ being rejected by nude pagans.

{{reflist}}

• 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.

• [https://books.google.com/books?id=mrA1qmZQk2sC "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.
• [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/journals/AJP/13/2/Pollice_Verso*.html "Pollice Verso"], article by Edwin Post in American Journal of Philology, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1892), pp. 213–225, online at LacusCurtius
• [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/polliceverso.html "The Gladiator and the Thumb"]
• [http://egallery.phxart.org/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:15877 "Pollice Verso" at Phoenix Art Museum]

{{Gestures}}

Category:Culture of ancient Rome

Category:Gladiatorial combat

Category:Latin words and phrases

Category:Hand gestures