CHAPTER 131

. 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."

Infami digito et lustralibus ante salivis Expiat, urentes oculos inhibere perita. Persius, Sat. ii

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,"