and POLLICIS VERSO, were used at the combats of gladiators as signals of life or death to the vanquished combatant; or to the victor to spare or take the life of his antagonist. The pollicis pressio, by which the people granted life to the prostrate gladiator, was no more than a clenching of the fingers of both hands together, and so holding the two thumbs upright close together. The pollicis verso, which authorized the victor to kill the other as a coward, was the bending back of the thumbs. Such is Dacier's opinion; but others say the pollicis pressio was when the people held up one hand with the thumb bent, and the pollicis verso when they showed the hand with the thumb raised. Authors, however, are not perfectly agreed, though the phrases pollicem premere, and pollicem vertere, frequently occur in the Latin classics as indications of the people's will that a gladiator should live or die.