Ring gestures, formed by forefinger and thumb with remaining digits extended, appear in Greece at least as early as the fifth century BCE, and can be seen on painted vases as an expression of love, with thumb and forefinger mimicking kissing lips. When proffered by one person toward another in Ancient Greece, the gesture was of one professing their love for another, and the sentiment was conveyed more in the touching of fingertips than in the ring that they formed. As an expression of assent and approval, the gesture can be traced back to first century Rome where the rhetorician Quintilian is recorded as having used it. Quintilian's "chironomy" prescribed variations in context for the gesture's use during specific points of a speech: to open, give warning or praise or accusation, and then to close a declamation.