THE GLADIATORIAL COMBATS.
[TO THE. EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Srn,—It is probably owing to a misprint that Horace (in Mr. Octavius Ogle's letter) is made to say " retroque police laudabit,"' instead of " utroque ;" but apart from this, your correspondent observes, " Curiously enough I have seldom met with a scholar who did not hold this view," viz., that the turning the thumb• downward was the fatal signal of the people in the gladiatorial combats. How far this may hold good of living scholars, I am not in a position to say, as a living scholar is a rara avis in our neighbourhood, but out of the number of those who ad plures- penetraverunt, let me cite, as additional witnesses on the other aide, but two.
Forcellinus, in his " Lexicon," says :—" In pollioe erat favoris• studiique significatio ; nom prementes favebant, aversantes im- proba.ntesque vertebant retro et subrigebant." And secondly, Mr. A. J. Macleane (in his note on Horace, l. c.) gives the following explanation :—" In the fights of gladiators, the people expressed their approbation by turning their thumbs down, and the reverse by uplifting them. When a gladiator had got his adversary down or disarmed him, he looked to the spectators for this signal, and according as the thumb was up or down, he despatched or spared the man." I may just add that in Dr. Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities " the correct explanation is also.
given (p. 455).—I am, Sir, &o., SENTIPAGANCTS.
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