VII
AMUSEMENTS, MUSIC, AND DANCING
CASES 1, 3, AND 5
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.
FIG. 84. SYMPOSIUM
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.
FIG. 85. KOTTABOS-STAND
FIG. 86. GLASS ASTRAGALS
