This paper deals with the use of some emblemes (i.e., gestures which, in a certain culture, have an inequivocal verbal equivalent) in classical Rome and their survival in the present time. We specifically study emblems which express ridicule and insult. Six gestures are analized; four of them were already used in Rome as mocking or insulting gestures (imitating the stork, the ears of an ass, sticking out the tongue and extending the middle finger); furthemore, two gestures have been included that were used in the Roman Antiquity but did not have the mocking meaning that they convey nowadays (the horn-sign and the fig-sign).