A GESTURE OF DEATH

What did the ‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’ signal mean?

It’s a common scene in many depictions of gladiatorial combat: the moment when the defeated gladiator awaits the decision of the emperor as to whether he will live to fight another day or be slaughtered on the spot. It was a moment of high drama, not to mention the point when the thousands of spectators supposedly had a say in the fate of the defeated man. This no doubt helps to explain the popularity of this scene in so much of the art and fiction about gladiators.

But what was the truth of this moment? For a start, it wasn’t necessarily up to the emperor to make these decisions. This decision belonged to the ‘editores’, or organisers, who might sometimes be an emperor, but not always. They would have the final call on death or mercy.

The other key question is was it a ‘thumbs up’ or a ‘thumbs down’ that indicated that the fallen gladiator should die? There has been much debate on this question and the hunt for definitive evidence continues. The Latin terms used to describe the gestures are a little ambiguous, such as ‘hostile thumb’ or ‘press your thumbs’, which according to Pliny the Elder was used to show mercy to a gladiator.

One suggestion made by American Classics professor Anthony Corbeill is that the phrase ‘pressing the thumb’ referred to a ‘thumbs down’ gesture pressing onto a closed fist. This could perhaps be imitating the sheathing of a sword to indicate mercy, with raising a thumb indicating the opposite.

What seems clear is that the Romans didn’t think about these hand gestures the way we do today.