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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 endeavored 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.

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, 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 '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 center 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. Another form of the Chytrinda required the lad in the center 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,' endeavoring 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.

The Kynitinda was so called from the verb xovéw 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 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 afterward 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.

The Epostrakismos 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 Piraeus, for example, they flung the shells edgeways over the water so that they should strike it and bound upward 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 say

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'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 the most leaps before sinking.'

The Akinetinda was a contention between boys, in which some of them endeavored to maintain his position unmoved. Good sport must have been produced by the next game called Schoenophilinda, 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 endeavored to drop secretly beside one of his com panions. 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 was a game in which one obtained by lot the rank of a 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 practiced 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.

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 appar ently 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 the ostrakon.' Plato alludes to it in the Phædros.

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.

There was another game called Kyndalismos, played with short batons, and requiring considerable strength and quickness of eye. A stick having been fixed upright 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.' A person who played at this game was called by some of the Doric poets Kyndalopactes. 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 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 vairety 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 ̧' boûteux 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 practiced 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 endeavored 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.

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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 afterward rushed forward to seize the ball. The person who picked it up, then cast it toward 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.

The Phæninda is a game in which the player, appearing as though he would throw a ball at one person, he 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 afterward, 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 Qurania, 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.

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 bind

ing themselves together, back to back, and pulling different ways.

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.

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, 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. 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; the Dog or one was called the Chian or dog-chance; to which the old proverb alluded Kãos zgòs xiov, 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 per⚫ fect 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.

To play at Odd or Even 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 hid den 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 servingmen playing at Odd or Even with golden staters. There was a game called Eis Omillan, 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 was also generally performed with astragals, which were pitched into a small hole, formed to receive such things when skillfully thrown.

11.—ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION.*

Age of School Attendance.

At seven years old, boys were removed from the harem and sent under the care of a governor to a public school, which, from the story of Bedreddin Hassan, we find to have been formerly the practice among the Arabs, even for the sons of distinguished men and Wezeers. 'When seven years had passed over him, his grandfather (Shemseddeen, Wezeer of the Sultan of Egypt,) committed him to a schoolmaster, whom he charged to educate him with great care.'

Mischievous no doubt the boys of Hellas were, as boys will every where be, and many pranks would they play in spite of the crabbed old slaves set over them by their parents; on which account, probably, it is that Plato considers boys, of all wild beasts, the most audacious, plotting, fierce, and intractable. But the urchins now found that it was one thing to nestle under mamma's wing at home, and another to delve under the direction of a didaskalos, and at schoolhours, after the bitter roots of knowledge. For the school-boys of Greece tasted very little of the sweets of bed after dawn. They rose with the light,' says Lucian, and with pure water washed away the remains of sleep, which still lingered on their eyelids.' Having breakfasted on bread and fruit, to which, through the allurements of their pedagogues, they sometimes added wine, they sallied forth to the didaskaleion, or schoolmaster's lair, as the comic poets jocularly termed it, summer and winter, whether the morning smelt of balm, or was deformed by sleet or snow, drifting like meal from a sieve down the rocks of the Acropolis.

Aristophanes has left us a picture, dashed off with his usual grotesque vigor, of & troop of Attic lads marching on a winter's morning to school:

Now will I sketch the ancient plan of training,
When justice was in vogue and wisdom flourished.
First, modesty restrained the youthful voice
So that no brawl was heard. In order ranged,
The boys from all the neighborhood appeared,
Marching to school, naked, though down the sky
Tumbled the flaky snow like flour from sieve.
Arrived, and seated wide apart, the master
First taught them how to chant Athena's praise,
Pallas unconquered, stormer of cities!' or

Shout far resounding' in the self-same notes

Their fathers learned. And if through mere conceit
Some innovation hunter strained his throat
With Scurril lays mincing and quavering,
Like any Siphnian or Chian fop-

As is too much the fashion since that Phrynis
Brought o'er Ionian airs-quickly the scourge
Rained on his shoulders blows like bail as one
Plotting the Muses' downfall. In the Palæstra
Custom required them decently to sit,
Decent to rise, smoothing the sandy floor
Lest any traces of their form should linger
Unsightly on the dust. When in the bath
Grave was their manner, their behavior chaste.

At table, too, no stimulating dishes,

Snatched from their elders, such as fish or anis,
Parsley or radishes or thrushes, roused
The slumbering passions.

Aristotle, enumerating Archytas' rattle among the principal toys of children, denominates education the rattle of boys. In order, too, that its effect might be the more sure and permanent, no holidays or vacations appear to have been allowed, while irregularity or lateness of attendance was severely punished.

Abridged from St. John's Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece. I, 164–205.

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