Pollice Verso

Gérôme painted this arena scene in 1872, a victorious gladiator standing over a fallen man while the crowd leans in and the Vestal virgins jab their thumbs down. He researched the armour and the setting obsessively, and the picture fixed one idea in the public mind for good, that thumbs down meant death. In truth the ancient sources are vague, and no one really knows which way the Roman thumb pointed to spare or condemn. The gesture we all picture is largely Gérôme's invention. Then in the 1990s a reproduction was put in front of Ridley Scott before he had even read the Gladiator script, and he later said that single image sold him the whole Roman world. Look at the arena wall packed with faces, every hand and thumb turned toward the same verdict.