Children's Games

Like parents throughout history, the Greeks gave their children presents, including ingenious toys bought from sellers in the agora or market. Simpler toys were made at home, frequently by the children themselves. In The Clouds, a comedy by Aristophanes, a proud father tells how clever his son is at making houses, ships, wagons and frogs out of pieces of leather. Other playthings included swings, seesaws, kites, hoops with bells, model carts, whipping tops and wheels which were attached to poles for pulling along. Tiny items of model furniture made of lead have been found, perhaps they were meant to go inside wooden doll houses.

Babies had rattles with pepples inside them. One lovely surviving example is in the shape of a pig. Jointed clay dolls have turned up in ruined temples, where they had been left as offerings and in the graves of children. Many more rag dolls and wooden items probably also existed but if they did, they were made of perishable materials and have not survived. Rules for many of the children's games haven't survived though we have vase paintings which attest to their existence. One which has been called ephedrismos appears to resemble cricket without a bat. Another vase shows boys playing a ball game in which one player rides on the back of another.

Balls were made of pigs bladders for team games which resemble hockey. A carved relieve in an Athens museum shows two players with their curved sticks. Vase paintings which are such a rich source of information on life in Ancient Greece, show leapfrog, piggy back and a form of blindman's bluff. One beautiful terracotta figurine shows two women absorbed in a game of knucklebones, played with the ankle bones of cloven footed animals. Five bones were tossed into the air, one at a time and each had to be caught and held on the back of the hand. Board games, said by the historian Herodotus to have been invented in the state of Lydia in Asia Minor, were played with dice and counters of glass and bone. The Greeks most often indulged in these pastimes when they were relaxing with their friends at home. Outside in the agora, they could choose from a wide range of more dramatic public entertainments. These included spectacular displays in the sunshine given by magicians, sword swallowers, conjurors and fire eaters.