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 “Tliga,” 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 Œnoplian rhythm and what by the Dactylic.
Strepsiades: Of the Dactyl (finger)? I know that quite well.
Socrates: What is it then?
Strepsiades: Why, ’tis this finger; formerly, when a child, I used this one.
(Daktulos means, of course, both Dactyl (name of a metrical foot) and finger. Strepsiades presents his middle finger with the other fingers and thumb bent under in an indecent gesture meant to suggest the penis and testicles. It was for this reason that the Romans called this finger the “unseemly finger.”)
Socrates: You are as low minded as you are stupid.” See also Suetonius, Tiberius, chapter 68.
