Games and Plays.
The little girls played with their dolls, making houses for them, setting out dishes before them, hauling them in carts, and swinging them and themselves in swings. In some of their plays they were joined by the little boys and they all played in the sand and made mud-pies and had see-saws and swings and they hitched up one another and dogs and goats to carts. The children carried one another pick-a-pack and they rode stick-horses and hobby-horses and they played bob-cherry and hide-the-rope and many other such games.
They rolled hoops, walked on stilts, played running and catching games, such as hide-and-seek; they played leapfrog, hopped and jumped, flew kites; they played games of forfeit, odd or even, how many fingers are held up; the older boys had the tug of war and tossed one another in blankets. In one game the boy had to hop with one foot on a skin-bottle filled with water and greased; they spun coins on the edges; they shot beans from the fingers as the modern boys do marbles; they threw up five small stones and caught them on the back of the hand, as boys do jack-stones now; they played with dice.
There was a game in which a stone was to be so thrown into a circle as to knock out the stones thrown into it by the other boys and itself remain in the circle. They would sharpen one end of a heavy peg of wood and then throw it into a softened place in the earth so that it would stand upright and also knock out another's peg. They would blacken or moisten one side of an oyster-shell and would call one side day and the other side night; then the boys would divide into two sides with these names and would take turns in tossing the shell up into the air and then note which side was up when it fell to the ground; the winning side would then pursue the others and take prisoners.
The boys, then as now, found great sport with tops, playing in the house as well as in the street. They had different kinds of tops, among them being a humming-top. The Greek boy would tie a long string to the leg of a beetle and then let it loose and guide its flying by holding to the string; sometimes the boys would fix a wax splinter to the beetle's tail and then light it before letting him loose.
The children played blind man's buff. They would bandage a boy's eyes, who would then go about calling out, "I am hunting a brazen fly." This would be answered by the others with, "You will hunt, but you won't catch it." They would then run about and strike him with whips till he caught one, who would then be blindfolded.
The Greeks were very fond of the ball and ball-playing. The balls were of all sizes and colors. Some were stuffed with feathers and wool and others were empty. They were made of leather and of such a size as was suited to the kind of game to be played with them. There was tossing and throwing and juggling with balls and also there were regular games. Mahaffy thinks that he has discovered from the descriptions given that they played games similar to the present foot-ball, hand-ball, and lacrosse. He believes foot-ball is shown in this description: "The first is played by two even sides, who draw a line in the center, on which they place the ball. They draw two other lines behind each side, and those who first reach the ball throw it over the opponents, whose duty it is to catch it and return it, until one side drives the other back over their goal line." In the following he can see hand-ball: "It consists of making a ball bound off the ground, and sending it against a wall, counting the number of the hops according as it was returned." From another writer he finds lacrosse: "Certain youths, divided equally, leave in a level place, which they have before prepared and measured, a ball made of leather, about the size of an apple, and rush at it, as if it were a prize lying in the middle, from their fixed starting-point (a goal). Each of them has in his right hand a racket of suitable length ending in a sort of flat bend, the middle of which is occupied by gut strings, dried by seasoning, and plaited together in net fashion. Each strives to be the first to bring it to the opposite end of the ground from that allotted to them. Whenever the ball is driven by the rackets to the end of the ground, it counts a victory."[171]