89
These pages: views of Luciano
Molinari’s workshop on Via
Padova in Milan. In its tiny space,
the cabinetmaker has gathered
over 450 types of wood, which he
uses to make catalogues of
sample specimens that come in
different formats. Top: a square
stackable box containing nine
wood samples
Unfortunately, literary
sources feature very few
references to the children’s
games of antiquity, but a
number of archaeological
discoveries have come to our
aid. They show us that (save
for the large amount of new technological games) most
of the many games with which the children of times past
amused themselves were very similar if not identical to
those played today. Both in ancient Greece and ancient
Rome, they played “odds and evens” (the Roman par
impar), clenching a number of stones in a closed fist and
challenging their playmate to guess whether their number
was odd or even. Twosomes played “heads or tails” (capita
et navia), trying to guess whether a head or a ship would
appear on one side of a coin. Other favourites were playing
ball (pila), rolling a wooden hoop (orbis or trochus) with
a stick (clavis), and the game of tag. There were swings,
kites, what we know today as blind man’s buff, and the
very popular pursuit of building a small dome with four
walnuts, which became the property of whoever managed
to make them fall in one toss.
Remarkably, one of the few games mentioned in literary
sources is the spinning top (turbo), of which Virgil gives
a fascinating description in The Aeneid: “Wild as a top
spinning under a twisted whip, when boys obsessed with
The spinning top,
a magical object
in the ancient world.
Text Eva Cantarella
Photos Allegra Martin
their play drive it round an empty court, the whip spinning
it round in bigger rings” (Book VII, lines 378-381). What
Virgil does not tell us here, however, is how the game is
won. According to some, concentric circles were drawn
on the ground (like a shooting target) with each area
corresponding to a higher score toward the centre. Victory
went to whoever managed to spin his top in the bull’s
eye. As a last note: spinning a top (usually made of wood)
was a pastime much enjoyed by Cato, who highly
recommended it to parents, while conversely advising
them to keep children well away from dice. Being a good
censor, he evidently feared that they would learn all too
quickly to squander their money gambling, one of Rome’s
most rampant and destructive vices.Eva Cantarella, a historian of antiquity, has studied the history
of the female condition, sexuality, and archaic law.