The scholiast on Callimachus, Jove, 48, alluding to this passage of Theocritus, says that military men were accustomed to place their children in shields after birth that they might become vigorous and strong. A specimen of a Greek cradle, that of the infant Hermes, a little two-handled basket shaped like a shoe, is seen on a vase.[[122]] The σκάφη, another kind of cradle, is mentioned as being instrumental in the ἀναγνώρισις of children: καὶ οἶνον ἐν τῇ Τυροῖ διὰ τῆς σκάφης.[[123]] Children were also exposed in a σκάφη: ἐνθέμενος οὖν εἰς σκάφην τὰ βρέφη.[[124]] Adrasteia, the nurse of Zeus, lulled him to sleep in a golden winnowing-fan:
Λίκνῳ ἐνὶ χρυσέῳ.[[125]]
It was considered an omen of future wealth and prosperity to place children in these λίκνα.[[126]] Bacchus is called λικνίτης,[[127]] and is represented as carried in a λίκνον between a faun and a Bacchante.[[128]] Hermes is conceived to have been cradled in the same manner.[[129]] Another kind of cradle shown on a vase looks like a bed on rollers,[[130]] and answers very well to the description given by Plutarch, Fragm. in Hesiod, 45: οἷά τισιν εὐκίνητα κλινίδια μεμηχάνηται πρὸς τὴν τῶν παιδίων εὐνήν. The rocking of the cradle is mentioned by Athenaeus: ἡ τροφὸς ... ἐτίθει αὐτὸ ἐν σκάφῃ ... ὅτε δὲ κλαίοι ... τὴν σκάφην ἐκίνει καὶ κατεκοίμιζεν αὐτό.[[131]]
Amusements Furnished by the Nurse
It was natural for the nurse to amuse the children with the various kinds of toys in use in antiquity. Of these, both the literature and the art of Greece furnish many examples. We shall here consider only the toys which are mentioned in direct connection with the nurse. That the nurse sometimes made toys for the children, we learn from Apollonius Rhodius, iii, 131 ff., where the wonderful ball of Zeus τὸ οἷ ποίησε φίλη τροφὸς Ἀδράστεια is described. The shaking of rattles (κρόταλα) before children by the nurse is spoken of by Stobaeus,[[132]] and Pollux has preserved a passage dealing with the same subject: τὸ κρόταλον καὶ τὸ σεῖστρον, ᾧ καταβαυκαλῶσιν αἱ τίτθαι ψυχαγωγοῦσαι τὰ δυσυπνοῦντα τῶν παιδίων.[[133]] We have a vase-painting which portrays a nurse holding in her arms a child, while before its face she dandles a fruit.[[134]] Plutarch’s little daughter used to ask her nurse to give her dolls the breast.[[135]] We learn from Plautus that the nurses took the children to the theatres:
Nutrix ...
Me spectatum tulerat per Dionysia.[[136]]
And in the Poenulus, the nurses are bidden to refrain from bringing the children to that play.[[137]] In Vitruvius’ account of the origin of the Corinthian Capital, there is mention made of a Corinthian nurse who gathers in a basket the playthings which had served for the amusement of her nursling in life, in order to adorn the tomb with them after death.[[138]]
General Care Over Children
To keep the child clean and to attend to all its wants were the principal occupations of the nurse. Cilissa recalls in touching terms the childhood of her dear nursling whose death she had just learned. She ran to him by night, at his least cry, anticipating all his wishes and foreseeing all his needs. Careful for the child’s cleanliness, she washes its garments and its linen: