"Middle finger" – invention of the ancient Greeks

The demonstration of the “middle finger” was most likely an invention of the ancient Greeks. About 2,500 years ago, the ancient Hellenes developed the phallic gesture to insult, ridicule, and literally push each other to their limits.

If you’ve ever made the middle finger gesture, you have something in common with the ancient Greeks, writes cnn international in a note published on January 22.

About 2,500 years ago, the mischievous Greeks invented the phallic gesture. While today raising the middle finger clearly means a loud “f**k you,” in classical society, historians say, the middle finger was more of a ritualistic sexual symbol.

Since then, the middle finger has become a frequently used emoji, an unintentional guest during a Super Bowl halftime show, a surprise signal on BBC live television and a rude gesture used by angry motorists. This is how it became the most obscene element of the human hand.

The middle finger appeared as a phallic gesture. Daring Greeks “probably relied on using the middle finger to indicate an erect penis”writes Max Nelson, a professor of classical civilizations at the University of Windsor (Ontario, Canada), in a 2017 article on the origins of this gesture.

The ostentatious display of the middle finger was usually a joke, an insult or a sexual proposition, say Nelson and other classical scholars. Several sources from Ancient Greece mention that middle fingers were used to poke people’s faces.

Greek playwright Aristophanes was also supposedly a fan of the gesture, mentioning “long finger” in several of his plays. In his comedy “Clouds”, written in 419 BC. e., cartoon Socrates tries to teach the debtor Strepsiades poetic meter. Strepsiades crudely jokes that he uses his other finger to create rhythm. Translators of the text usually conclude that Strepsiades is gesturing with his middle finger (or, in some translations, exposing his private parts) to suggest masturbation, Nelson says. Whatever the intention, the character of Socrates reacts with disgust.

The gesture eventually made its way to ancient Rome, where the locals probably called it “digitus impudicus” – indecent finger. The Roman historian Suetonius reported that Emperor Caligula forced his subjects to kiss his middle finger—according to anthropologist and leading middle finger historian Desmond Morris, it was a humiliating gesture that symbolized the ruler’s penis.

According to Morris, the middle finger we know today—raised high in the air and bending the other fingers to its will—represents the penis and testicles. He says: “It’s a phallus that you offer to people, which is a very primal manifestation.”” Morris told the BBC in 2012.

However, it is unclear whether the ancient Greeks and Romans extended their middle finger vertically into the air. Nelson writes that while ancient people most likely used their middle fingers to make obscene gestures, they may have pointed them horizontally or in other directions – somewhat differently than the typical “finger” we know today. “In the end, it might be better to keep the ‘finger’ to yourself.” – Nelson writes.

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