As at the present time, festivities frequently centered around dining. In Greece, many dinners were given by men to their friends, followed by the symposium, at which the guests drank wine mixed with water, told jests, sang, and often watched hired performers, such as jugglers, tumblers, and dancers. A kylix in Case E in the Fourth Room is decorated with a scene from a symposium (fig. 84). The special game for this occasion was “kottabos,” which was played with the aid of a bronze contrivance like a candelabrum, of which an example stands in the Fifth Room (fig. 85). The players held their cups by one handle and tried to throw a small quantity of liquid on the bronze disk at the top of the shaft, so that it fell down with a ringing sound. The game was also played by throwing the liquid into nutshells or small saucers floating in a krater full of water, so as to make them sink. Many games of chance were known to the Greeks and Romans. Perhaps the most popular were those played with the knucklebones (astragaloi) of sheep and goats. They could be used like dice, and also like “jacks,” being thrown up and caught on the back of the hand. A toilet box on the middle shelf of Case 3 (fig. 87) shows three women playing, one of whom has an astragal on the back of her hand. The knob on the cover of the box is appropriately made in the same form. Nine very small examples of glass are in Case 1 (fig. 86). The invention of draughts was ascribed to Palamedes, one of the heroes of the Trojan War, a story which at least proves that they were played in Greece in very early times. Nuts and coins were also used as counters in various games, and games of dice were played in various ways. Astragals could be used as dice, and had the advantage of needing no marks, as the sides were naturally different.

The musical instruments in use were the lyre and kithara and the flute, with some other less common varieties of stringed instruments. The kithara, the instrument of professional musicians, had a sounding-board and hollow arms of wood. The strings extended from the “yoke,” a cross-piece connecting the arms, to the sounding-board. The kithara was usually played standing, and was hung by a band to the performer’s shoulders. He played with both hands, using the plectron or “pick” in his right. A rather rude terracotta from Cyprus in Case 1 represents a woman with a kithara, a terracotta statuette of Eros with a kithara is in Case K in the Seventh Room, and a wall-painting in the Eighth Room represents a lady playing one (see fig. 21). Kithara players in festal costume at the public games are represented on three vases in the collection (Case K in the Third Room and Cases E and Y in the Fourth Room). Another illustration is on an amphora on the bottom of Case P in the Fifth Room, where Apollo, the god of music, stands before an altar holding his favorite instrument (fig. 90). The best representation, however, is the kithara held by a gold siren who forms the pendant of an earring exhibited in the Gold Room. The details of construction are fully worked out and the attachment of the strings can be clearly seen. Those used at public festivals were often richly ornamented with carving and inlay of semi-precious stones.

The lyre was the usual instrument of the amateur. Boys learned to play it at school, and gentlemen were expected to be able to accompany themselves upon it at symposia. Its sounding-board was made of the shell of a tortoise covered on one side with wood. The upright pieces, curved outward and in again toward the top, were sometimes made of the horns of animals. It had a yoke near the ends of the uprights, and a bridge on the sounding-board. The strings, of sheep’s guts or sinews, varied in number from three to eleven at different periods, but seven was the usual number in the fifth century. The plectron was generally used in playing both instruments. Several good illustrations of the lyre may be seen in the Museum collection. A satyr with a lyre decorates an amphora on the shelf in Case J in the Fourth Room. On the bottom of Case O is an amphora showing Kephalos with a lyre (fig. 88), and on the shelf above a boy singing to the lyre will be seen in the interior of a kylix. A man holding a lyre, probably a guest at a symposium, decorates the inside of a kylix in Case E. An interesting little bronze figure in Case C 2 in the Third Room represents a musician in festival dress with the same instrument. The statuette was probably a votive offering for success in a contest.

The ancient flute differed from the modern in being played at the end, and in having a vibrating reed as a mouthpiece. The tone was shrill. Flutes were always played in pairs, and a kind of bandage was often worn by the player to support their weight. This can be seen on the psykter in Case 4 and on a terracotta statuette from Cyprus in Case 1. Flute music had a very wide use. It accompanied the voice in solo or chorus, and the kithara at public contests; it was employed in the theatre at Athens and at Rome, and was used to guide and accompany the exercises of the palaistra. The flute furnished music for dancers, and in Rome it was played at funerals. Meals were served and work such as the kneading of bread in bakeries was done to its music. Flute-cases are often represented in interior scenes in Greek vase paintings, as on the inside of a kylix in Case O in the Fourth Room, showing a boy playing the lyre, and on a lekythos in Case K in that room where a woman is playing the same instrument. Another instrument was the syrinx or Pan’s pipe, made of reeds arranged in graduated lengths, fastened together with cords and wax. It was especially the shepherd’s companion in his long, solitary days with his flocks. The little faun which forms the pendant of the bracelet in Case K 2 in the Seventh Room is playing the syrinx. Cymbals were used principally at religious ceremonies of an orgiastic type. There are two pairs in the collection, one being marked with the owner’s name, Kallisthenia (Case 5 and Case C 2 in the Sixth Room). Dancing formed a part of worship in ancient times. The rude clay groups of men and women dancing in a ring illustrate a feature of the worship of Aphrodite in Cyprus (Case 1). In Greece boys were taught the exercises preliminary to a dancer’s training as a part of their physical education, and the many public festivals gave opportunity for large numbers to progress further. Professional dancers, both boys and girls, were employed to furnish entertainment at symposia. On a kylix on the bottom of Case L in the Fourth Room is a girl dancing and playing the castanets, while a young man looks on (fig. 89). Women of good family danced at home for amusement, and at domestic festivals. The character of Greek dancing was largely mimetic, the movements of the arms and the use of the drapery being very important (see tail-piece, p. 75). The terracotta dancers in Case L in the Seventh Room and another in Case 1 are good illustrations of this (figs. 91-92). The Romans in early times practised religious dancing. The processions of the Salii or priests of Mars, and of the Arval Brothers are the best-known examples of such ritual performances. Dancing as an amusement, however, they adopted from the Greeks in its period of decadence, and consequently the sterner moralists opposed it. Under the early Empire it nevertheless grew very fashionable. Girls and women of noble family learned to dance as an accomplishment, and even men of high rank danced, though at the cost of their dignity. Professional dancers were greatly sought after and admired.

Our representations of pet animals are all on articles of Greek manufacture. An old gentleman walking with his sharp-nosed Melitean dog decorates the interior of the kylix by Hegesiboulos in Case K in the Fourth Room. Cocks and quails were kept for fighting by boys and young men. Ganymede on an amphora in Case J in the Fifth Room carries his cock on his arm (see fig. 52). Quails, cranes, small birds, and rabbits were also household favorites. On the perfume vases in Cases Q and C in the Fifth Room, quails, cranes, and a rabbit appear among the groups of women. Cats were probably introduced from the East or from Egypt in the late sixth or the early fifth century, but they were rare and seemed to have been looked upon as curiosities rather than as pets. The goose was perhaps the commonest pet and children are often represented playing with one. Some small boys with two goats harnessed to a little chariot appear on the oinochoë in Case Y in the Fourth Room.