Pollice verso or verso pollice is a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 phrase, meaning "with a turned thumb", that is used in the context of gladiatorial combat

Gladiator

A gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the...

. It refers to the hand gesture

Gesture

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body...

 used by Ancient Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 crowds to pass judgment on a defeated gladiator.

The type of gesture described by the phrase pollice verso is unclear. From the historical and literary record it is uncertain whether the thumb was turned up, turned down, held horizontally, or concealed inside the hand to indicate positive or negative opinions.

Popularly, it is assumed that "thumbs down" was the signal that a defeated gladiator should be condemned to death; "thumbs up", that he should be spared.

History

The notion of the pollice verso thumb signal was brought to popular attention by an 1872 painting by French history painter

History painting

History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

 Jean-Léon Gérôme

Jean-Léon Gérôme

Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.-Life:Jean-Léon Gérôme was born...

 titled Pollice Verso

Pollice Verso (Gérôme)

Pollice Verso is a painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, featuring the eponymous Roman gesture directed to the winning gladiators....

(usually translated into English as Thumbs Down). It is a large canvas that depicts the Vestal Virgin

Vestal Virgin

In ancient Roman religion, the Vestals or Vestal Virgins , were priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth. The College of the Vestals and its well-being was regarded as fundamental to the continuance and security of Rome, as embodied by their cultivation of the sacred fire that could not be...

s signifying to a Murmillo

Murmillo

The murmillo was a type of gladiator during the Roman Imperial age. The murmillo-class gladiator was adopted in the early Imperial period to replace the earlier Gallus, named after the warriors of Gaul...

 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

Alexander Turney Stewart

Alexander Turney Stewart was a successful Irish American entrepreneur who made his multi-million fortune in what was at the time the most extensive and lucrative dry goods business in the world....

 (1803–1876), who exhibited it in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and it is now in the Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix art museum

The Phoenix Art Museum is the Southwest United States' largest art museum for visual art. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western...

 in Arizona.

The painting was a strong influence on the film Gladiator

Gladiator (2000 film)

Gladiator is a 2000 historical epic film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays the loyal Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed...

. The producers showed director Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott

Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...

 a reproduction of the painting before he read the script; "That image spoke to me of the Roman Empire in all its glory and wickedness. I knew right then and there I was hooked", commented Scott.

Pollice Verso is also the title of a controversial 1904 drawing of the Crucifixion by Australian artist Norman Lindsay

Norman Lindsay

Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....

.

Further reading

• Anthony Philip 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
  Princeton University Press
  -Further reading:* "". Artforum International, 2005.-External links:* * * * *...
  
  , 2004) 978-0-691-07494-8
• Desmond Morris
  Desmond Morris
  Desmond John Morris, born 24 January 1928 in Purton, north Wiltshire, is a British zoologist and ethologist, as well as a popular anthropologist. He is also known as a painter, television presenter and popular author.-Life:...
  
   – Gestures: Their Origin and Distribution (1979)
• "Top 10 Myths About the Romans" at listverse.com (5 May 2008)

External links

• "Pollice Verso", article by Edwin Post in American Journal of Philology
  American Journal of Philology
  The American Journal of Philology is a quarterly academic journal established in 1880 by the classical scholar Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. It covers the field of philology, and related areas of classical literature, linguistics, history, philosophy,...
  
  , Vol. 13, No. 2 (1892), pp. 213–225, online at LacusCurtius
  LacusCurtius
  LacusCurtius is a website specializing in ancient Rome, currently hosted on a server at the University of Chicago. It went online on August 26, 1997; in January 2008 it had "2786 pages, 690 photos, 675 drawings & engravings, 118 plans, 66 maps." The site is the...
  
  
• "The Gladiator and the Thumb"
• "Pollice Verso" at Phoenix Art Museum