A long time ago I read a history article that was pretty impressive. I’ve since realised that few people know about this, so I would like to share it with you!
We accept that a thumbs-down gesture means boo, hiss, no, bad, wrong that sort of thing. The thumbs up means good, great, yes, OK, perfect. We agree? Great.
Back in history when gladiators fought, and the crowds cheered or booed they also used the thumbs up or thumbs down gesture to communicate with the gladiator.
You’d think that thumbs down would be used by the crowd to tell the gladiators to kill the person they were fighting with. However, I learned in that history article that it is the opposite, it’s the thumbs up gesture instead. No way, I hear you cry!
This is a misinterpretation that comes from the work of the French artist Léon Gérôme (see his painting here). The title of his painting was mistranslated from Latin to mean thumbs ‘turned down’ when in fact the title meant thumbs ‘turned up.’
In the painting, you can see a victorious gladiator standing over the lifeless body of his opponent while the crowd delivers a wave of downturned thumbs!
The first line of the jeering crowds you can see the “Vestals”, always virgins, supporting the crowd gesture. Were they in favour of the human death?
What do you think?
Nowadays we fully understand that a thumbs-up gesture is a signal for approval, it is used often on this basis. It comes from the hand of Christianity: thumbs-up gesture pointing to heaven, this means the good and salvation, and a thumbs-down gesture pointing to hell.
So… keep this in mind the next time you give someone the “thumbs up” sign. Swords drawn anyone? 😀
Elisa was born and grew up in Santander, Spain until the last summer when she moved to London. She is a CODA and has a website and fanpage on Facebook where she uploads videos in Spanish Sign Language about her trips, recipes, culture, and the Deaf Community. She works for Deaf Umbrella as their Digital Campaigner.
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John Walker
October 19, 2017
Actually the title of the painting, in Latin, is ‘Pollice Verso’, which means the ‘turned thumb’ – it doesn’t actually say that the thumb is either up or down.
But the other point is probably correct. The thumb down gesture actually meant, in Roman times, ‘put down your sword’ and the thumb up is ‘raise your sword’. The translation the author has raised concerns Pliny’s translation of Juvenal’s Satires in 1601, which said the ‘throw your sword down’ for the downward gesture but Dryden in 1693 translates the gesture as the thumb pointing back towards the signer’s body to imply ‘death’.
Hartmut Teuber
October 19, 2017
Another early, perhaps the earliest picture showing a gesture is the “horn-hand” gesture, the index and pinkie fingers extended from the fist. It was shown in a mural in an Etruscan home. The same gesture was also shown in a family portrait of a wealthy man of Florence (17th century?). The gesture was shown behind the head of this patrician to mean that this guy is a cuckold. Perhaps the Etruscan used it for the same meaning.
On the Grecian and Roman vases I see the very common waving gesture “come here” and pointing.
There is also another gesture shown in the painting linked above, The victim to be slayed uses the three-hand (thumb, index and middle fingers extended), a common sign seen on statues and paintings of Jesus and saints to mean “holy” or “blessed”.