Historical correctness

[mapuc]

In my childhood I loved to watch Hollywood made action movies with actors like Errol Flynn, Charlton Heston a.s.o

Lets start with a classic movie with Charlton in which he is portrait a Gladiator.

In this movie you see some scenes where the emperor turn his thumb down.

Some years back I saw on my history channel an historian telling us that this thumb down was incorrect.

He(The Emperor)was pointing his thumb to his throat which indicate-cute his throat(eliminate him)


.........

Until earlier today, when I saw about half an hour of Roman empire. Here an Historian gave us an another version.

He said the emperor turned his whole hand down with the thumb in same direction
(hard to describe how this historian held his hand, when showing it)

This made me wonder....

What is the historical correctness when it comes to this famous thumbs up/down ?

Markus