Lies They Teach in School: Exposing the Myths Behind 250 Commonly Believed Fallacies
Herb Reich
Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2012 As a matter of fact, using a thumbs-up as a sign of approbation is a twentieth-century interpretation, totally opposite to its meaning in ancient Rome. When judging a gladiator, thumbs-up originally meant “send him to the gods”-that is, kill him. Thumbs-down signified dropping the sword-that is, let him live.
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Pollices in fauendo premi, sicut in denegando fauorem uerti solitos : ex eoque sententiae Horatii, Iuuenalis, et Prudentii declaratae. Cap. XLII.
Horatius in primo epistolarum Libro:
Consentire suis studijs qui crediderit te,
Fautor utroque tuum laudabit pollice ludum.
Vtroque inquit pollice Porphyrion, hoc est, utraque manu, ut fit tropos synecdoche, a parte totum. Sed ne quem forte ueteris scriptoris autoritas infatuet, ei quoque aurem leuiter peruellemus. Scriptum est igitur apud Plinium Libro Naturalis historiae octauo et uigesimo, in haec uerba: Pollices um faueamus, premere etiam prouerbio iubemur. Ex quo Iuuenalis peritissime illud : Et uerso pollice vulgi, Quemlibet occidunt populariter. Ceu si uerso pollice tollatur fauor. Denique etiam Prudentius in heroico aduersus Symmachum, ita contra Vestales, quae muneri gladiatorio intererant, declamauit:
Et quoties victor ferrum iugulo inferit, illa
Delicias ait esse suas, pectusque iacentis
Virgo modesta iubet conuerso pollice rumpi.
Nam ut fauere , qui pollicem premerent, ita puto, qui uerterent denegare gladiatoribus fauorem credebantur.