Mannerisms in the ancient world

Probably they were as varied as mannerisms and gestures are today from country to country, region to region. Our OK sign, circle with thumb and forefinger with the other 3 digits together, is an obscene gesture in Brazil.

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

I think this is one area where you just have to give them mannerisms that your readers will understand. Also, there's no concrete way to KNOW, for sure, what local mannerisms were at that time.

It's true we should never assume, and yeah, since they're not around to tell us, we may never know with this one. You might research what the current gestures are in Rome/Italy, and try to extrapolate.

Or you could take the focus off your subject and just go with those gestures your prospective reader will be most familiar with.

You might find pictures from pottery etc. that give some indications. Of course, you then have to interpret the gestures too, and explain them to your readers! Tricky.

I recently found myself having to explain the V-sign (very rude gesture in the UK) to some Americans who thought it was the same as the peace sign (hand the other way round). So clearly not everything is universal!

I've spent some time in Greece, and the body language is different.

They didn't nod their head "yes". It was more of a sharp jerk of the head backwards. Very confusing. It looked more like a "come here" in American body lingo.

Thrusting an outspread hand in someone's face was considered very rude - like giving someone the finger.

People would kind of pretend to spit on babies while uttering "po, po, po". Apparently to ward off the evil eye, which was still something a lot of people took seriously.

Impossible to say how long this body language has been in use in Greece. Also, the huge influence of Ottoman culture confuses what is of Greek and what is of Turkish origin.

Modern Greek is such a very staccato language (like a machine gun) that people very often sounded angry when they weren't, and there wasn't much in the way of adding "please" and "thank you" to everyday speech. I was always getting made fun of for doing that.

One of my favorites is the Philippines. Instead of whistling at pretty girls, the men (BOYS!) make a "ssssssss" sound, like a snake.

And agreement is given by a quick raise of the eyebrows. I talked with a little girl, asking her questions, and her face had no expression at all except to raise her eyebrows as "Yes" to my questions. Very different, but very cute.

Oh, sorry, that isn't any help at all.

I did a Google search for "ancient sparta body language" and found very little -- but did see a conference where several people had given talks that were pertinent. My favorite? "Insult & Humiliation in Ancient Athens (with slides)". You might be able to search for articles written by these people on this topic, or look them up at their universities & give them a call! I did this about a month ago & got a great deal of help from a professor in Texas.

http://www.apaclassics.org/outreach/APABureau.html


wee

c.e.lawson said:

I'm tending to go with what JoNightshade and Bourbon Street suggested - focus on my reader.

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This. Really, what does it matter if the ancient Spartan version of a nod was to hold out their right leg and roll their ankle counterclockwise (hard to do without clocks, but still)? Saying as much would jar the reader and yank them right out of the story.

Think of mannerisms like dialogue. You're not writing your lines in Attic Greek (which I'm not even sure would be wholly accurate), any more than I'm writing mine in Classical Latin. None of our characters ever spoke or heard English, but to tell their story to the reader, that's what has to happen.

Same with mannerisms. In my experience, some mannerisms are universal. Smiling, laughing, blushing, are all universal, and I'd venture a lot of expression/body stance mannerisms are as well, so the rolling of the eyes, or standing with arms crossed, etc, are probably pretty similar everywhere.

There are differences, too. The Romans used to make signs to ward off the Evil Eye. They used to mock those who scratched at their hair with one finger as effeminate (Cicero said this of Caesar). Curiously enough, there is evidence that the Romans had something very similar to our own middle finger.

Of those, I believe the only one I used was the warding off of the Evil Eye, and that sparingly.

It is recorded that during a meeting between Sioux and Crow warriors, one of the Crow rose and lifted his loin cloth exposing himself directly in front of Sitting Bull's face in a provocative insult. Sitting Bull did not lose his temper and reacted stoically, which was considered an even greater show of true manhood. Ironically, the younger Sioux who had been exposed to White Man's teachings thought he had behaved cowardly and should have killed the Crow.

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

wee said:

"Insult & Humiliation in Ancient Athens (with slides)". You might be able to search for articles written by these people on this topic, or look them up at their universities & give them a call! I did this about a month ago & got a great deal of help from a professor in Texas.

http://www.apaclassics.org/outreach/APABureau.html

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Quite possibly the best title ever for a conference lecture.

When I think of teenagers I think of eye rollers. No-one can roll their eyes quite so eloquently as 14 year old American girls. I think you could use the eye rolling thing in Ancient Sparta without jarring the reader.

Back when I was a teenager all those years ago, eye rolling had to be done behind my mother's back. Being caught in the act would earn one a firm clip around the ear. I think it was considered ruder and more disrespectful then than it is now.

You could have your Spartan teenager rolling her eyes, but could also make it clear that she had to be careful not to be caught doing it by adults. Just an idea that would allow you to keep modern mannerisms while putting them in a more historical perspective.

wee said:

I did this about a month ago & got a great deal of help from a professor in Texas.

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Just curious, but which professor? I did my last two years at UT, and may well have taken one of their courses.

From Wikipedia...so take with a grain of salt, but it keeps pretty well with what I've read elsewhere:

The origin of this gesture is speculative, but is quite possibly thousands of years old. It is identified as the digitus impudicus ("impudent finger") in Ancient Roman writings[1] and reference is made to using the finger in the Ancient Greek comedy The Clouds by Aristophanes. It was defined there as a gesture intended to insult another. The widespread usage of the finger in many cultures is likely due to the geographical influence of the Roman Empire and Greco-Roman civilization. Another possible origin of this gesture can be found in the first-century Mediterranean world, where extending the digitus impudicus was one of many methods used to divert the ever present threat of the evil eye.[2]

There is a popular story about English bowmen waving fingers at the French knights who did not manage to cut them off during the Hundred Years' War. However, this is a confusion with the origins of the V sign, which are themselves in question.[3]

Another possible origin is the phallic imagery of the raised middle finger (the middle finger being the longest finger on the human hand), similar to the Italian version of the bent elbow insult.

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I'll go with the crowd that says to keep the mannerisms ones that modern readers will understand, as long as the characters conform to standards of politeness of the time. So, I would accept eye-rolling from a fifteen year old girl of any period , but as long as such allowable disrespect for elders would be right in the context of the particular time and place. Same goes with rude gestures, the kind as might be made when that jerk chipping a text message on his stone tablet cuts you off in your chariot. Use the modern gestures, but keep them in context, as dolores suggested!

Interesting...

as everyone so rightly says, we are so far away and readers have to be at ease.

But I would avoid the eye rolling which seems to me to be a very American thing and not Greek and the head nods. Nodding as we do means No so my Greek students taught me some years back. Rolling eyes were associated with madness and devils taking over a person's body, so maybe something to avoid? But a shrug, even a little twitch of the shoulders, is universal isn't it?

Have a look at Aristophane's (sorry spelling not right but I am in a rush!) 'The Birds' which has plenty of insults and gestures. The finger, yes! How about dropping her head so that she looks at the ground, no one can see her face so she can pull one!
Also I seem to remember the hands behind the back where the fingers can make the old devil's/goat's horns is a very old gesture.

Hmm...I might have to invest in this book:

Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome

From a sample chapter:

Many Roman gestures of this type would be quite familiar to the modern viewer: Romans pointed with the index finger to draw attention to a person or object,23 scratched the head and bit the fingernails in anxiety,24 and put a finger to the lips to request silence.25 And yet Sittl's compendium of many of these "quotable gestures" in his sixth chapter (tellingly entitled "Symbolische Geba ¨rden") reveals that the ancient authors who preserve even such apparently straightforward gestures do not consider their uses restricted to interpersonal communication. Rather, the gestures frequently derive their validity from a perceived relationship between their individual expression and workings in the world that exist outside the gesture's ad hoc usage. The most familiar example of the coexistence of a human and transhuman element in gesturing is the extended middle finger. Originally representing the erect phallus, the gesture conveys simultaneously a sexual threat to the person toward whom it is directed and an apotropaic means of warding off unwanted elements of the more-than-human.

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Not the ancient world, but while reading one of Greene's Elizabethan pamphlets on the criminal underworld (great resource!) I ran across a mention of a man shrugging with joy. It got me wondering when shrugging became a gesture of indifference in Western culture.
While I agree you don't want to confuse your readers, don't some at least read historical fiction in order to be immersed in a different culture? I think if you provide context for the first instance of a gesture, 'she shook her head in firm agreement' sort of thing, most readers would pick it up.
-Barbara

in my humble opinion, by all means, go for the correct mannerisms when you can find them. if the ancient spartans expressed agreement by standing on one foot, spinning around and clapping their hands above their head, then by all means tell us that, because that's interesting. but if they shake their head for yes and nod their head for no, i might be tempted to leave this detail out and go for the mannerisms that your (presumably english-speaking) readers will be familiar with. i think even if you set it in a context, something like that will cause confusion. i will always read a nod as a 'yes', no matter how you've set it up for me. but, a wholly foreign gesture, i will be willing to accept as meaning anything.

Upon further research, I've found that apparently Romans (it didn't call out Greeks, unfortunately) would nod their heads forward for "yes" and nod their heads back - which I picture as analogous to the "what's up?" nod - for "no".

Now I'm going to have to go back and read how other writers have handled it. But, personally, I think the nod forward/back is fertile ground for confusion, and so I'm going to stick with nodding for "yes" and shaking the head for "no".

This may just be me, but I think of nodding as a forward gesture anyways - think of someone falling asleep and their head falling forward - that's called 'nodding'.
What if you said 'nod' for forward motion / positive and 'jerk' (which to me is an upward motion - maybe not for everyone?) for negative?
-Barbara