Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/215

 Medio sustulit digito:

There is more than a suggestion in the choice of the middle finger, in this instance. Among the Romans, the middle finger was known as the “infamous finger.”

See also Dio Chrysostom, xxxiii. “Neither,” says Lampridius, Life of Heliogabalus, “was he given to demand infamies in words when he could indicate shamelessness with his fingers,” Chapter 10. “With tears in his eyes, Cestos often complains to me, Mamurianus, of being touched by your finger. You need not use your finger, merely: take Cestos all to yourself, if nothing else is wanting in your establishment,” Martial, i, 93.

To touch the posteriors lewdly with the finger, that is, the middle finger put forth and the two adjoining fingers bent down, so that the hand might form a sort of Priapus, was an obscene sign to attract catamites. That this position of the fingers was an indecent symbol is attested by numerous passages in the classical writers. “He would extend his hand, bent into an obscene posture, for them to kiss,” Suetonius, Cali- Rh