, 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,
Caligula, 56. It may be added that one of that emperor's officers
assassinated him for insulting him in that manner. When this finger was
thus applied it signified that the person was ready to sodomise him whom
he touched. The symbol is still used by the lower orders.

"We are informed by our younger companions that gentlemen given to
sodomitical practices are in the habit of frequenting some public place,
such as the Pillars of the County Fire Office, Regent St., and placing
their hands behind them, raising their fingers in a suggestive manner
similar to that mentioned by our epigrammatist. Should any gentleman
place himself near enough to have his person touched by the playful
fingers of the pleasure-seeker, and evince no repugnance, the latter
turns around and, after a short conversation, the bargain is struck. In
this epigram, however, Martial threatens the eye and not the anus." The
Romans used to point out sodomites and catamites by thus holding out the
middle finger, and so it was used as well in ridicule (or chaff, as we
say) as to denote infamy in the persons who were given to these
practices.

"If anyone calls you a catamite, Sextillus," says Martial, ii, 28,
"return the compliment and hold out your middle finger to him."
According to Ramiresius, this custom was still common in the Spain of his
day (1600), and it still persists in Spanish and Italian countries, as
well as in their colonies. This position of the fingers was supposed to
represent the buttocks with a priapus inserted up the fundament; it was
called "Iliga," by the Spaniards. From this comes the ancient custom of
suspending little priapi from boys' necks to avert the evil eye.

Aristophanes, in the "Clouds," says:

SOCRATES: First they will help you to be pleasant in company, and to
know what is meant by OEnoplian rhythm and what by the Dactylic.

STREPS