Though, as we have seen, weak children were unscrupulously sacrificed at Sparta, they still made offerings to the gods in favour of the strong. The ceremony took place annually during certain festivals, denominated Tithenidia,^[451] when, in a moment of hospitality, they not only made merry themselves, but overlooked their xenelasia, and entertained generously all such strangers as happened to be present. The banquet given on this occasion was called Kopis, and, in preparation for it, tents were pitched on the banks of the Tiasa near the temple of Artemis Corythalis. Within these, beds formed of heaps of herbs were piled up and covered with carpets. On the day of the festival the nurses proceeded thither with the male children in their arms, and, presenting them to the goddess, offered up as victims a number of sucking pigs. In the feast which ensued loaves baked in an oven, in lieu of the extemporary cake, were served up to the guests. Choruses of Corythalistriæ or dancing girls, likewise performed in honour of the goddess; and in some places persons, called Kyrittoi, in wooden masks, made sport for the guests.^[452] Probably it may have been on occasions such as this that the nurses, like her in Romeo and Juliet, gave free vent to their libertine tongues, and indulged in those appellations which the tolerant literature of antiquity has preserved.^[453]

When children were to be weaned, they spread, as the moderns do, something bitter over the nipple,^[454] that the young republican might learn early how—

Having described, as far as possible, the management of infants and young children, it may not be uninteresting to notice briefly their toys, sports, and pastimes; for, though children have been substantially the same in all ages and countries, the forms of their amusements have been infinitely varied, and where they have resembled each other it is not the less instructive to note that resemblance. The ancients^[455] have, however, bequeathed us but little information respecting the fragile implements wherewith the happiness of the nursery was in great part erected. Even respecting the recreations which succeeded and amused the leisure of boys our materials for working out a picture are scanty, so that we must content ourselves with little more than an outline. Nevertheless, though the accounts they have transmitted to posterity are meagre, they attached much importance to the subject itself; so that the greatest legislators and philosophers condescended to make regulations respecting it. Thus Plato, with a view of generating a profound reverence for ancient national institutions, forbade even the recreations of boys to be varied with reckless fickleness; for the habit of innovation once introduced into the character would ever after continue to influence it, so that they who in boyhood altered their sports without reason, would without scruple in manhood extend their daring hands to the laws and institutions of their country.^[456]

Amongst the Hellenes the earliest toy consisted, as in most other countries, of the rattle, said to be the invention of the philosopher Archytas.^[457] To this succeeded balls of many colours,^[458] with little chariots, sometimes purchased at Athens in the fair held during the feast of Zeus.^[459] The common price of a plaything of this kind would appear to have been an obolos. The children themselves, as without any authority might with certainty be inferred, employed their time in erecting walls with sand,^[460] in constructing little houses,^[461] in building and carving ships, in cutting carts or chariots out of leather, in fashioning pomegranate rinds into the shape of frogs,^[462] and in forming with wax a thousand diminutive images, which pursued afterwards during school hours subjected them occasionally to severe chastisement.^[463]

Another amusement which the children of Hellas shared with their elders was that afforded by puppets,^[464] which were probably an invention of the remotest antiquity. Numerous women appear to have earned their livelihood by carrying round from village to village these ludicrous and frolicsome images, which were usually about a cubit in height, and may be regarded as the legitimate ancestors of Punch and Judy. By touching a single string, concealed from the spectators, the operator could put her mute performers in action, cause them to move every limb in succession, spread forth the hands, shrug the shoulders, turn round the neck, roll the eyes, and appear to look at the audience.^[465] After this, by other contrivances within the images, they could be made to go through many humorous evolutions resembling the movements of the dance. These exhibitors, frequently of the male sex, were known by the name of Neurospastæ. This art passed, together with other Grecian inventions, into Italy, where it was already familiar to the public in the days of Horace, who, in speaking of princes governed by favourites, compares them to puppets in the hands of the showman.

A very extraordinary puppet, in the form of a silver skeleton, was, according to Petronius Arbiter,^[467] exhibited at the court of Nero; for, like the Egyptians, this imperial profligate appears to have been excited to sensual indulgences by the remembrance of the grave: “Let us eat and drink,” cried he, “for tomorrow we die.” The skeleton being placed upon the table, in the midst of the tyrant’s orgies, threw its limbs strangely about, and bent its form into various attitudes with wonderful flexibility, which having performed once and again, and then suddenly ceasing to move, the master of the feast exclaimed, “Alas, alas! what a mere nothing is man! Like unto this must we all be when Orcus shall have borne us hence. Therefore let us live while enjoyment is in our power.” But to return to the children of Hellas. Among the earliest sports of the Greek boy was whipping the bembyx or top,^[468] which would appear to have been usually practised in those open spaces occurring at the junction of several roads:—

Sometimes also, as with us, they spun their tops with cord. The amusement is thus described by Tibullus:^[470]

The hoop, too, so familiar to our own schoolboys, formed one of the playthings of Hellenic children. It was sometimes made of bronze, about three feet in diameter,^[471] and adorned with little spherical bells and movable rings, which jingled as it rolled. The instrument employed to urge

as Gray expresses it, in his reminiscences of the Eton play-ground, was crooked at the point, and called a plectron: its exact representation may any day, in the proper season, be seen in the streets of London impelling forward the iron hoop of our own children. The passages of ancient authors, in which mention of the trochos occurs, appear to have been imperfectly understood before the discovery of a basso-rilievo, in marble, on the road from Rome to Tivoli, afterwards removed to the vineyard of the Cardinal Alexander Albani. On certain engraved gems also, in the cabinet of Stosch, are several representations of boys playing at hoop, where the trochos in some cases reaches to the waist, in others to the breast, and where the child is very small up to the chin. It has been conjectured by Winkelmann,^[472] that a circle represented in one of the paintings of Herculaneum was no other than an ancient trochos. Rolling the hoop formed a part of the exercises of the palæstra, which were performed even by very young children. Thus we find the nurse describing the sons of Medeia returning from playing at hoop the very day that they were slain by their mother.^[473] This amusement has been described briefly by the Roman poets. Thus Martial:^[474]—

Propertius^[475] notices the crooked form of the plectron, or clavis:—

Horace^[476] likewise alludes to the game:—

This poet clearly informs us that the Romans received the game from the Greeks:^[477]—

Another less innocent amusement was^[478] spinning goldchafers, which appears to have afforded the Greek urchins the same delight as tormenting cockchafers does their successors of the north. This species of beetle making its appearance when the apple-trees were in bloom, was therefore called Melolanthe, or apple-blossom. Having caught it, and tied a linen thread about its feet, it was let loose, and the fun was to see it move in spiral lines through the air as it was twisted by the thread.^[479]

It was the practice among the children of Greece, when the sun happened to be obscured by a cloud, to exclaim, “Ἔξεχ᾽ ὦ φίλ᾽ ἥλιε!”—“Come forth, beloved sun!” Strattis makes allusion to this custom in a fragment of his Phœnissæ:—

It is fortunate that our English boys have no such passion for sunshine; otherwise, as Phœbos Apollo hides his face for months together in this blessed climate, we should be in a worse plight than Dionysos among the frogs of Acheron, when his passion for Euripides led him to pay a visit to Persephone. In some parts of the country, however, the children have a rude distich which they frequently bawl in chorus, when in summer-time their sports are interrupted by a long-continued shower:—

The Muïnda was our “Blindman’s-buff,” “Blind Hob,” “Hobble ’em-blind,” and “Hood-man-blind,” in which, as with us, a boy moved about with his eyes bandaged, spreading forth his hands, and crying “Beware!” If he caught any of those who were skipping around him, the captive was compelled to enact the blind-man in his stead. Another form of the game was for the seers to hide, and the blind man to grope round till he found them; the whole probably being a rude representation of Polyphemos in his cave searching for the Greeks who had blinded him. A third form was, for the bystanders to strike or touch the blindfolded boy until he could declare who had touched him, when the person indicated took his place. To this the Roman soldiers alluded when they blindfolded our Saviour and smote him, and cried, “Prophesy who struck thee.”^[481] In the Kollabismos,^[482] the Capifolèt of the French, one person covered his eyes with his own hands, the other then gave him a gentle blow, and the point was, for the blindfolded man to guess with which hand he had been stricken. The Χαλκὴ Μυῖα,^[483] or Brazen Fly, was a variety of Blindman’s-buff, in which a boy, having his eyes bound with a fillet, went groping round, calling out, “I am seeking the Brazen Fly.” His companions replied, “You may seek, but you will not find it”—at the same time striking him with cords made of the inner bark of the papyros; and thus they proceeded till one of them was taken. Apodidraskinda (“hide and seek,” or “whoop and holloa!”) was played much as it is now. One boy shut his eyes, or they were kept closed for him by one of his suspicious companions, while the others went to hide. He then sallied forth in search of the party who lay concealed, while each of them endeavoured to gain the post of the seeker; and the first who did this turned him out and took his place.

Another game was the Ephedrismos, in which a stone called the Dioros was set up at a certain distance, and aimed at with bowls or stones. The one who missed took the successful player upon his back, and was compelled to carry him about blindfolded, until he went straight from the standing-point to the Dioros. This latter part of the game has been described by several ancient authors, under the appellation of Encotyle, though they are rightly, by Hesychius,^[484] considered as different parts of the same sport. The variety called Encotyle,—the “Pick-back” or “Pick-a-back,” of English boys, consisted in one lad’s placing his hands behind his back, and receiving therein the knees of his conqueror, who, putting his fingers over the bearer’s eyes, drove him about at his pleasure. This game was also called the Kubesinda and Hippas,^[485] though, according to the conjecture of Dr. Hyde, the latter name signified rather our game of “Leap-frog,”—the “mazidha” of the Persians, in which a number of boys stooped down with the hands resting on the knees, in a row, the last going over the backs of all the others, and then standing first.

In the game called Chytrinda, in English^[486] “Hot-cockles,” “Selling of pears,” or “How many plumbs for a penny,” one boy sat on the ground, and was called the chytra or pot, while his companions, forming themselves into a ring, ran round, plucking, pinching, or striking him as they went. If he who enacted the chytra succeeded in seizing upon one of the buffeters the captive took his place. Possibly it was during this play that a mischievous foundling, contrary to rule, poking, as he ran round, the boy in the centre with his foot, provoked from the latter the sarcastic inquiry, “What! dost thou kick thy mother in the belly?” alluding to the circumstance of the former having been exposed in a chytra.^[487] Another form of the Chytrinda required the lad in the centre to move about with a pot on his head, where he held it with his left hand, while the others struck him, and cried out, “Who has the pot?” To which he replied, “I Midas,” endeavouring all the while to reach some one with his foot,—the first whom he thus touched being compelled to carry round the pot in his stead.^[488]

Another game, peculiar to girls, was the Cheli Chelone, or “the tortoise,” of which I remember no representative among English pastimes. It somewhat resembled the Chytrinda of the boys. For one girl sat on the ground and was called the tortoise, while her companions, running round, inquired “Tor-tortoise what art thou doing there in the middle?” “Spinning wool,” replied she, “the thread of the Milesian woof;” “And how, continued they, was thy son engaged when he perished?” “He sprang from his white steeds into the sea.”^[489] If this was, as the language would intimate, a Dorian play, I should consider it a practical satire on the habits of the other Hellenic women, who remained like tortoises at home, carding and spinning, while their sons engaged in the exercises of the palæstra or the stadium. Possibly, also, originally the name may have had some connection with καλλιχέλωνος “beautiful tortoise,” the figure of this animal having been impressed on the money of the Peloponnesians; in fact, in a fragment of the Helots of Eupolis, we find the obolos distinguished by the epithet of καλλιχέλωνος.^[490]

The Kynitinda was so called from the verb κυνέω to kiss, as appears from Crates in his “Games,” a play in which the poet contrived to introduce an account of this and nearly all the other juvenile pastimes. The form of the sport being little known, the learned have sometimes confounded it with a kind of salute called the chytra in antiquity, and the “Florentine Kiss” in modern Italy, in which the person kissing took the other by the ears. Giraldi^[491] says he remembers, when a boy, that his father and other friends, when kissing him, used sometimes to take hold of both his ears, which they called giving a “Florentine kiss.” He afterwards was surprised to find that this was a most ancient practice, commemorated both by the Greek and Latin authors. It obtained its name, as he conjectures, from the earthen vessel called chytra, which had two handles usually laid hold of by persons drinking out of it, as is still the practice with similar utensils in Spain. This writer mentions a present sent from the peninsula to Leo X, consisting of a great number of chytræ of red pottery, if we may so call them, of which he himself obtained one. Crates, as Hemsterhuis^[492] ingeniously supposes, introduced a wanton woman playing at this game among the youths in order that she might enjoy the kisses of the handsome.

The Epostrakismos^[493] was what English boys call “Ducks and Drakes,” and sometimes, among our ancestors at least, “A duck and a drake and a white penny cake,” and was played with oyster-shells. Standing on the shore of the sea at the Peiræeus, for example, they flung the shells edgeways over the water so that they should strike it and bound upwards again and again from its surface. The boy whose shell made most leaps before sinking, won the game. Minucius Felix gives a very pretty description of this juvenile sport. “Behold, he says, boys playing in frolicsome rivalry with shells on the sea-shore. The game consists in picking up from the beach a shell rendered light by the constant action of the waves, and standing on an even place, and inclining the body, holding the shell flat between the fingers, and throwing it with the greatest possible force, so that it may rase the surface of the sea or skim along while it moves with gentle flow, or glances over the tops of the waves as they leap up in its track. That boy is esteemed the victor whose shell performs the longest journey or makes most leaps before sinking.”^[494]

The Akinetinda was a contention between boys, in which some one of them endeavoured to maintain his position unmoved. Good sport must have been produced by the next game called Schœnophilinda, or “Hiding the Rope.” In this a number of boys sat down in a circle, one of whom had a rope concealed about his person, which he endeavoured to drop secretly beside one of his companions. If he succeeded, the unlucky wight was started like a hare round the circle, his enemy following and laying about his shoulders. But on the other hand, if he against whom the plot was laid detected it, he obtained possession of the rope and enjoyed the satisfaction of flogging the plotter over the same course.

The Basilinda^[495] was a game in which one obtained by lot the rank of king, and the vanquished, whether one or many, became subject to him, to do whatever he should order. It passed down to the Christians, and was more especially practised during the feast of the Epiphany. It is commonly known under the name of Forfeits, and was formerly called “One penny,” “One penny come after me,” “Questions and commands,” “The choosing of king and queen on Twelfth night.” In the last-mentioned sense it is still prevalent in France, where it is customary for bakers to make a present to the families they serve, of a large cake in the form of a ring in which a small kidney bean has been concealed. The cake is cut up, the pieces are distributed to the company, and the person who gets the bean is king of the feast. This game entered in Greece likewise into the amusements of grown people, both men and women, as well as of children, and an anecdote, connected with it, is told of Phryne, who happened one day to be at a mixed party where it was played. By chance it fell to her lot to play the queen; upon which, observing that her female companions were rouged and lilied to the eyes, she maliciously ordered a basin and towel to be brought in, and that every woman should wash her face. Conscious of her own native beauty, she began the operation, and only appeared the fresher and more lovely. But alas for the others! When the anchusa, psimmuthion, and phukos had been removed by the water, their freckled and coarse skins exposed them to general laughter.^[496]

The Ostrakinda was a game purely juvenile. A knot of boys having drawn a line on the ground, separated into two parties. A small earthenware disk or ostrakon, one side black with pitch, the other white, was then produced, and each party chose a side, white or black. The disk was then pitched along the line, and the party whose side came up was accounted victorious, and prepared to pursue while the others turned round and fled. The boy first caught obtained the name of the ass, and was compelled to sit down, the game apparently proceeding till all were thus caught and placed hors de combat. He who threw the ostrakon cried, “night or day,” the black side being termed night, and the opposite day. It was called the “Twirling of the ostrakon.” Plato alludes to it in the Phædros.^[497]

The Dielkustinda, “French and English,” was played chiefly in the palæstra, and occasionally elsewhere. It consisted simply in two parties of boys laying hold of each other by the hand, and pulling till one by one the stronger had drawn over the weaker to their side of the ground.

The Phryginda was a game in which, holding a number of smooth and delicate fragments of pottery between the fingers of the left hand, they struck them in succession with the right so as apparently to produce a kind of music.^[498]

There was another game called Kyndalismos, played with short batons, and requiring considerable strength and quickness of eye. A stick having been fixed up-right in a loose moist soil, the business was to dislodge it by throwing at it other batons from a distance; whence the proverb, “Nail is driven out by nail, and baton by baton.”^[499] A person who played at this game was called by some of the Doric poets Kyndalopactes.^[500] A similar game is played in England, in which the prize is placed upon the top of the upright stick. The player wins when the prize falls without the hole whence the upright has been dislodged.

The game of Ascoliasmos^[501] branched off into several varieties, and afforded the Athenian rustics no small degree of sport. The first and most simple form consisted in hopping on one foot, sometimes in pairs, to see which in this way could go furthest. On other occasions the hopper undertook to overtake certain of his companions who were allowed the use of both legs. If he could touch one of them he came off conqueror. This variety of the game appears to have been the Empusæ ludus of the Romans. “Scotch hoppers,” or “Fox to thy hole,” in which boys, hopping on one leg, beat one another with gloves or pieces of leather tied at the end of strings, or knotted handkerchiefs, as in the diable boîteux of the French. At other times victory depended on the number of hops, all hopping together and counting their springs,—the highest of course winning. But the most amusing variety of the game was that practised during the Dionysiac festival of the Askolia. Skins filled with wine or inflated with air, and extremely well oiled, were placed upon the ground, and on these the shoeless rustics leaped with one leg and endeavoured to maintain a footing, which they seldom could on account of their slipperiness. However, he who succeeded carried off the skin of wine as his prize.

A game, evidently also of rustics, was the Trygodiphesis, Tantali ludus, “Bobbing for cherries,” “Bob cherry,” in which something very nice was thrown into a bowl of wine lees, which the performer, with his hands behind his back, was to fish up with his lips. The fun was to see the ludicrous figure he cut with his face daubed and discoloured by the lees.

Phitta Maliades, Phitta Meliai, Phitta Rhoiai, “Hasten, nymphs!” may be regarded as exclamations of encouragement uttered by Dorian girls, when engaged in a race.^[502]

Playing at ball was common, and received various names. Episkyros, Phæninda, Aporraxis and Ourania. The first of these games was also known by the names of the Ephebike and the Epikoinos. It was played thus: a number of young men assembling together in a place covered with sand or dust, drew across it a straight line, which they called Skyros, and at equal distances, on either side, another line. Then placing the ball on the Skyros, they divided into two equal parties, and retreated each to their lines, from which they immediately afterwards rushed forward to seize the ball. The person who picked it up, then cast it towards the extreme line of the opposite party, whose business it was to intercept and throw it back, and they won who by force or cunning compelled their opponents to overstep the boundary line.

Daniel Souter^[503] contends that this was the English game of football, into which perhaps it may, in course of time, have been converted. This rough and, it must be confessed, somewhat dangerous sport, originally, in all probability, introduced into this country by the Romans, may still on Shrove Tuesday be witnessed in certain towns of South Wales. The balls consist of bulls’ bladders protected by a thick covering of leather, and blown tight. Six or eight are made ready for the occasion, every window in the town is shut by break of day, at which time all the youths of the neighbourhood assemble in the streets. The ball is then thrown up in front of the town-hall, and the multitude, dividing into two parts, strive with incredible eagerness and enthusiasm to overcome their antagonists, each endeavouring to kick the foot-ball to the other extremity of the town. In the struggle severe kicks and wounds are given, and many fierce battles take place. The ball sometimes mounts thirty or forty feet above the tops of the highest houses and falls far beyond, or goes right over into the gardens, whither it is immediately followed by a crowd of young men. The sport is kept up all day, the hungry combatants recruiting their strength from time to time by copious horns of ale, and an abundant supply of the nice pancakes which the women sell in baskets at the corner of every street. To view this sport, thousands of persons assemble from all the country round, so that to the secluded population of those districts it is in some sort what the battle in the Platanistas was to the Spartans, or even what the Isthmian and Nemean games were to the whole of Greece.

The Phæninda^[504] is supposed to have received its name either from its inventor, Phænides (called Phænestios in Athenæus^[505] and the Etymologicon Magnum), or from the verb Φενακίζειν^[506] “to deceive,” because, making as though they would throw at one person, they immediately sent it at another, thus deluding the expectation of the former. It appears at first to have been played with the small ball called Harpaston, though the game with the large soft one may afterwards perhaps have also been called Phæninda. The variety named Aporraxis consisted in throwing the ball with some force against the ground and repelling it constantly as it rebounded; he who did this most frequently, winning. In the game called Ourania, the player, bending back his body, flung up the ball with all his might into the air; on which there arose a contention among his companions who should first catch it in its descent, as Homer appears to intimate in his description of the Phæacian sport. They likewise played at ball in the modern fashion against a wall, in which the person who kept it up longest, won, and was called king; the one who lost, obtained the name of ass, and was constrained by the laws of the game to perform any task set him by the king.^[507]

A game generally played in the gymnasia was the Skaperda. In this a post was set up with a hole near the top and a rope passed through it. Two young men then seized each one end of the rope, and turning their back to the post exerted their utmost strength to draw their antagonist up the beam. He who raised his opponent highest won. Sometimes they tried their strength by binding themselves together, back to back, and pulling different ways.

The Himanteligmos, “pricking the garter,” in Ireland “pricking the loop,” was really an ingenious amusement. It consisted in doubling a thong, and twisting it into numerous labyrinthine folds, which done, the other party put the end of a peg into the midst in search of the point of duplication. If he missed the mark the thong unwound without entangling the peg; but if he dropped it into the right ring his peg was caught and the game won. Hemsterhuis^[508] supposes the Gordian knot to have been nothing but a variety of the Himanteligmos. He conjectures that the boys of Abdera were fond of this game, on which account the sophisms of Democritus were called ἱμαντελικτεαὶ, and hence probably a sophist, as one who twists words together, to lash others, was called Himantelicteus.

Another game, not entirely confined to children, was the Chalkismos, which consisted in twisting round rapidly on a board or table a piece of money, and placing the point of the finger so dexterously on its upper edge as to put a stop to its motion without permitting it to fall. This was a favourite amusement of Phryne the hetaira, as building houses of cards was of La Belle Stuart.^[509] Some of these sports were peculiar to the female sex,^[510] as the Pentalitha, which is still played by girls in some remote provinces of our island, where it is called “Dandies.” The whole apparatus of the game consisted in five astragals—knuckle bones—pebbles, or little balls, which, gathered up rapidly, were thrown into the air and attempted to be caught in falling on the back of the hand or between the slightly spread fingers. If any fell it was allowable to pick them up, provided this were done with the fingers of the same hand on which the other astragals rested.^[511] The girls of France, according to Bulenger, still amuse themselves with the Pentalitha, there played with five little glass balls, which are flung in the air and caught so dexterously as seldom to fall either on the table or on the ground. I have never, however, seen it played myself in that country.

The Astragalismos,^[512] which by the Romans was denominated talorum or taxillorum ludus, (by Hyde through the Greek πάσσαλος, derived from the Hebræo-Punic Assila,) by the Arabs Ka’b or Shezn, by the Persians Shesh-buzhûl bâzi, by the Turks Depshelìm, (played in their country both by girls and boys,) by the French Garignon or Osselets, in English “Cockall.”^[513] In the game of astragals the Persians, as is implied in the name given above, often use six bones while the Greeks employed only four, which were thrown either on a table or on the floor. According to Lucian,^[514] the huckle bones were sometimes those of the African gazelle.

The several sides of the astragal or huckle bone had their character expressed by numbers, and obtained separate names, which determined the value of the throw.^[515] Thus, the side showing the Monas was called the Dog, the opposite side Chias, and the throw Chios. In cockall as in dice there are neither twos nor fives. The highest number, six, was called the Coan (συνορικὸς or ἑξίτης); the Dog or one was called the Chian or dog-chance; to which the old proverb alluded Κῶος πρὸς χῖον, six to one. To have the Dog turn up was to lose, hence, perhaps, the phrase, “going to the dogs,” that is, playing a losing game. The throw of eight was denominated Stesichoros, because the poet’s tomb at Himera consisted of a perfect octagon. Among the forty who succeeded to the thirty at Athens Euripides was one, and hence, if the throw of the astragals amounted to forty points, they bestowed upon it the name of Euripides. All animals in which the astragal is found have it in the hough or pastern of the hind legs. The τὸ πρανὲς, the gibbous side or blank, because it counts for nothing; the τὸ κοῖλον, the hollow side or “put in;” the χῶα, the tortuous side, "cockall," or “take all,” so called because it wins the stake; the smooth side τα χῖα, “take half,” because of the money put in, it wins half. Among the Greeks and Romans the put in was called trias, the blank tetras, the half-monas, and the cockall hexas.^[516] By the Arabs they are denominated the thief, the lamb, the wezeer, and the sultan; by the Turks the robber, the ploughman, the kihaya, or the dog, and the bey; by the Persians the robber, the rustic, the wezeer, and the schah; by the Armenians the thief, the ploughman, the steward, and the lord. The number of casts among the Greeks, according to Eustathius, amounted to thirty-five.^[517] Pliny^[518] speaks of a work of Polycletos representing naked boys playing at this game, and the reader will probably remember the mutilated group in the British Museum, in which a boy having evidently been beaten at astragals, is biting in revenge the leg of his conqueror.

To play at Odd or Even^[519] was common; so that we find Plato describing a knot of boys engaged in this game in a corner of the undressing room of the gymnasium. There was a kind of divination by astragals, the bones being hidden under the hand, and the one party guessing whether they were odd or even. The same game was occasionally played with beans, walnuts, or almonds, or even with money, if we may credit Aristophanes, who describes certain serving-men playing at Odd or Even with golden staters.^[520] There was a game called Eis Omillan,^[521] in which they drew a circle on the ground, and, standing at a little distance, pitched the astragals at it; to win consisting in making them remain within the ring. Another form of the Eis Omillan was to place a trained quail within a circle, on a table for example, out of which the point was to drive it by tapping it with the middle finger. If it reared at the blow, and retreated beyond the line, its master lost his wager. The play called Tropa^[522] was also generally performed with astragals, which were pitched into a small hole, formed to receive such things when skilfully thrown. The common acorn, and fruit of the holm oak, were often substituted for astragals in this game. The Ephentinda seems to have consisted in pitching an ostrakon into a circle, so as to cause it to remain there. The Skeptinda consisted in placing an ostrakon, or a piece of money, on the ground, and pitching another at it so as to make it turn.^[523]