Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4830106-20151026041312/@comment-4830106-20151102194119

Maki Kuronami wrote: Phantomlink959 wrote:

False, thumb out in any direction means kill. thumb tucked in is spare.

To elaborate, those arenas were pretty huge, and a hand is pretty small, so they had to be distinctive so as to be told apart at long distance. The thumb stuck out represents the sword, regardless of direction, and means the person dies. the thumb in means the sword is kept sheathed and they may live. So basically, almost every gladiatorial fight recreations were full of shit. Reality is unrealistic. The imagery of thumbs-up/thumbs-down endures because it's simple, it's easier for audiences to understand, and it's used time and time again in fiction. It's basically the gladiator equivalent of pirates making people walk the plank (of which there is only one recorded instance in history).