Chapter III. Spinning tops and knucklebones
p. 229-242
Texte intégral
1Towards the middle of the 5th century, a series of vase-paintings depict maidens playing with spinning tops, mainly of the heavy whip-activated spinning-top type. Their prenuptial age corresponds to that required for acquiring the ergonomic skills needed to spin these objects. The meaning of the play scene differs according to the sex of the participants. As examined in Part 2,122 for a boy, the image of the spinning top being whipped by Hermes is a metaphor for the discipline, and even violence, to be endured at the palaestra. When the spinning top is whipped into motion by Eros, the network of references for maidens is linked to the nuptial context and related rituals.
Women’s spinning top competitions
2While boys usually played with spinning tops alone (figs. 2.21, 2.26, 2.28), four vases show girls playing in pairs in what appears to be a kind of competition. As in a masculine agon, the training takes place between individuals of the same age and equal strength.123 On a lekythos in New York (fig. 3.28; 440-430),124 two young women, one shown frontally, the other in a spinning motion, her back to the spectator, are bent over their spinning tops, following their movements with intense concentration, their left arms wrapped tightly in their himation so as not to impede their movements, and their right arm wielding a stick.125 Both toys spin on their axis at a slight angle, suggesting the repeated impetus given to them by the girls. Only a few details differentiate the players: one of the girls’ hair is held in a sakkos, while the other’s is loose. Does the competition consist of bumping into the partner’s spinning top and causing it to deflect or fall? On a lekythos attributed to the Bosanquet Painter (fig. 3.29; 440-430),126 the competition is over. The spinning top on the right has fallen at the feet of a maiden who has stopped competing, arms lowered, staring at the winner who is still in action. The end of a great agitation is suggested by her undone garment, without a belt, revealing a breast. The inscription [nymphe] kale between the players pays tribute to the beauty of the maidens.
Fig. 3.28. Unattributed lekythos, 440-430. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1875, 75.2.9.

Fig. 3.29a, b. Lekythos attributed to the Bosanquet Painter, 440-430. Boston, coll. John Herrmann Jr.

Fig. 3.30a, b, c, d. Pyxis lid attributed to Aison Painter, 440-430. Athens, National Museum BS 58.

3On the rim of an unusual bell-shaped lid by the Aison Painter (fig. 3.30; 440-430),127 a continuous frieze places the game in the world of women. As on the standard decoration of cylindrical pyxides, a large door marks the interior space of the oikos.128 Four pairs of women, a richly dressed mistress and a servant or companion, interact with different attributes. They hold or exchange objects relating to body care (alabastron containing perfumed oil, mirror, jewellery box), but also to wool work (spinning, a portable loom). At the centre, two maidens compete in a game of spinning tops. Only the player on the left, adorned with jewellery and wearing a polos hat, is playing under the watchful eye of her companion. The movement of her body expresses her energy and concentration, leaning forward, her gaze fixed on the toy, her hair blowing in the wind, with appropriate technical gestures: resting on her left leg, the tip of her left foot outstretched, she lifts her right arm and bends her elbow to strike the spinning top with her whip while holding her left arm tight to steady her twirling tunic. In front of her, the toy spins perfectly straight. Opposite her, a second player with a ponytail stands almost motionless. She holds a spinning top in her right hand, ready to place it on the ground, her whip in the left hand. According to Angelos Zarkadas, this unusual lid could be part of a vessel made to be a wedding gift; the decoration summarises women’s domestic activities involving work and leisure, and the shape of the container may have imitated a wool basket.129
4Two white-ground vases, associated with funerary contexts, also depict the game. A very fragmentary lekythos by the Sabouroff Painter (fig. 3.31; 460-450),130 displays a young woman wearing a sakkos, leaning forwards and staring at her spinning top, which has not been preserved, that she is whipping; as on the New York lekythos (fig. 3.28), her left arm is clasping her himation. Opposite her, a young woman standing without a whip looks at her, raising her right hand as if to comment on the player’s skill. The scene may not just evoke the leisure activities of the deceased; it could also symbolically refer to the unpredictable duration of life, rendered by the random movement of the spinning top. A lone female player is depicted at the centre of a white-ground cup with wishbone handles, framed by a wide coral border, potted by Hegesiboulos from the Sotades Painter’s workshop, (fig. 3.32; c. 460).131 She wears an elegant sakkos, a chiton and himation pulled tightly under the arm on her left side. She is moving, leaning forward with her right foot resting on the edge of the tondo that forms the frame of the image. Her whip is still, but she is watching the spinning top move away, leaning into the curvature of the other part of the tondo. The cup is part of a group from a grave known as the Tomb of Sotades. The iconography of the other cups seems to have formed a discourse on life transitions.132 Did the spinning top nostalgically evoke the deceased’s pastime? Or could the scene also signify a passage, this time towards death, suggested by the dizzying spin of the toy?
Fig. 3.31. Lekythos attributed to the Sabouroff Painter, 460-450. Athens, National Museum, collection M. Vlastos-Serpieris.

Fig. 3.32. Cup signed Hegesiboulos (potter), attributed to the workshop of the Sotades Painter, c. 460. Brussels, Musées Royaux A891.

Eros’ whip
5The whip that activates the toy also has a double meaning associated with processes of amorous magic. It forces the object to spin, just like Eros constricts the heart suffering from love emotions. The effect of erotic charms is compared to that of a whip. In magical Greek papyri incantations, the whip of the invoked power constrains the will of the victim who loses all control.133 In Theocritus, the magician uses both an iynx and a bronze rhombos that “turns round by the power of Aphrodite” to force the coveted being to take her hand.134
6Greek painters were interested in the almost hypnotic power of the object. They often use its swirling movement to symbolise a change of condition taking place. On two South Italian vases, a maiden seems to be metaphorically transposed into the festivities that will mark her transition to the status of wife. An Apulian pelike in Matera (fig. 3.33; 390-380)135 places the power of Eros in a nuptial context. The young god is standing at the centre of the scene, leaning forwards to whip a large spinning-top on the ground. In front of him, a young woman is sitting on a rock, richly adorned like a maiden ready for marriage. She follows the movement of the object attentively, without looking at the god who is invisible. Above Eros, a dove in a window frame marks the presence of Aphrodite. Standing behind Eros, a second elegantly dressed woman walks holding a ball, another symbol of the invitation to fall in love.
7For Marco Giuman, the spinning top refers to the gift of toys during the proteleia, the preparations for the wedding ceremony, which included several preliminary rites. The bride-to-be would win the favour of the deities, in particular Artemis, by making offerings of clothes, hair, and toys.136 In the sanctuary of Persephone in Locri Epizefiri, a bronze figurine shows a maiden holding two offerings, a ball in one hand and a lock of hair she is about to cut in the other.137 But there could be other references. The seated nymphe stares at a movement that projects a vision of events to come.
Fig. 3.33a, b. Apulian pelike, 390-380. Matera, Museo Nazionale Domenico Ridola 14294.

8The spinning top evokes the dances performed at wedding feasts. Several vases, both Attic and South Italian, depict girls twirling in short garments that inflate with air as they spin.138 On a chous fragment in Tübingen (c. 380),139 the scene is transposed to the epic realm. Menelaus has regained possession of Helen. He has seized her wrist, cheir epi karpou, and takes her away in a procession, followed by a female dancer wearing a polos, who spins in a short skirt, adding a nuptial and festive dimension to this moment of Helen’s return. In Greek culture, the transition from parthenos to wife is often compared to an abduction or a little death. This is the fate suffered by Core-Persephone, who is abducted by Hades to become his wife.140 The rapid movement of the spinning top, like that of the dancers, creates a feeling of dizziness that symbolises the transformation undergone by the maiden.
9On the Matera pelike, Eros leads the dance. He sets the spinning top in motion, just as he sets the dancers and the girls’ hearts in motion. He is responsible for this action and the resulting marriage. The balance of the perfectly straight spinning top could symbolise that of the union to come. But its stability is precarious, and the image of the toy is a reminder that it will be up to the wife to activate it again. The young woman thus focuses her gaze on an object in motion which anticipates both the performance of the nuptial rites and the fulfilment of her own destiny. It is with the same intense gaze that the beautiful seated nymphe on an Apulian pelike in Mariemont (fig. 3.34; 340-320)141 stares at the articulated female figurine in a short dancer’s outfit and perhaps a polos that seems to be swinging on a string from a young man’s finger; like the spinning top on the Matera pelike (fig. 3.33), the doll metaphorically projects the young woman into the ritual.
10On an Apulian bell-krater in Syracuse (fig. 3.35; late 5th cent.),142 Hermes, patron of passages, stands behind Eros and watches as the little god transforms the girl herself into a spinning top by holding her hands to make her spin—or do they spin together? Above the group, a suspended band symbolises the forthcoming wedding festivities.
Fig. 3.34. Apulian pelike attributed to the Darius Painter, 340-320. Morlanwelz, Musée royal de Mariemont 2016/47.

Fig. 3.35. Apulian bell-krater, c. 425. Syracuse, Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi 36465.

Fig. 3.36. Unattributed pyxis lid, 420-410. Athens, Paul and Alexandra Kanellopoulos Museum Δ 117.

11The spinning top held by the young woman on the Matera pelike (fig. 3.33b) could also refer to the pyrrhic dancer, trained and disciplined by the whip of physical education. On a krater in Palermo (fig. 3.23), the dancer stands facing the bride, who is about to attend her performance. The lid of a pyxis preserved in Athens (fig. 3.36; late 5th cent.)143 also draws an explicit comparison between the spinning top thrown by Eros on one side and a young dancer in arms, practising to the tune of a double-flute under a trainer’s watchful eye on the other side. Like the spinning top activated by Eros, this dance seems to relate symbolically to the maiden’s transformation into a bride. A series of articulated terracotta ‘dolls’ or figurines, used during nuptial rites, wearing helmets or with torsos imitating anatomical armour, could represent this type of dancer in arms.144 It is tempting to compare these dances with the scenes of Amazon armour painted on epinetra, the terracotta protections that fitted over the knees of the spinners, whether the real protection or its symbolic substitute, and which were also wedding gifts. Some examples bear the image of Amazons arming themselves on both sides, while others depict wedding preparations on one side and warrior women on the other.145 These images of women in arms—who do not get married—also express metaphorically the fortitude and the strength the mortal ones need to face up to what is the equivalent of the ordeal of war: pregnancy and, above all, childbirth.146
12An epigram attributed to Callimachus also refers to the divinatory dimension of the observation of the spinning top (fig. 3.33), revealing the success of the future of love.147 A young man came to consult Pittacus of Mytilene, one of the Seven Wise Men, because he was hesitating between two unions, one with a woman wealthier than himself and the other of equal status. Pittakos advised him to listen to what the children were saying, most probably boys, spinning their tops in a large square. The man approached and heard them shouting to follow the nearest spinning top: “Drive the way that suits you”. From these words he understood that his future wife should have the same social standing as him. In addition to the random movements of the spinning top, the spontaneous words of the children acted as a kledon, a divine message transmitted spontaneously.
13This anecdote is part of a wider series that relates to the oracular power of children’s words spoken in a sacred environment. According to Plutarch, the Egyptians attributed a divinatory value to the words uttered by children playing in the sanctuary of Apis in Memphis, “crying out whatever chances to come into their minds”.148 The simplicity of the children was believed to allow divine speech to pass without restraint. Their spontaneous words or actions were impartial and could not be instrumentalised by adults, which also explains why they were often included in drawing lots procedures.149
14The symbolism of spinning tops in the nuptial sphere could belong to a much older social system of female representation. Claudia Lambrugo has opened new avenues by interpreting the shape of the ovoid geometric pyxides associated with women’s tombs as simulacra of spinning tops.150
Knucklebones
15Knucklebones or astragaloi, these small bones with four different faces, wide and narrow, come from the hind legs of ungulate mammals; they were used in a variety of games and divinatory practices. Divine figures play with them on jewellery worn at weddings, transferring their propitiatory power to the bride. The gold earrings from Kyme (fig. 3.37; 340-300)151 thus combine a series of games that convey luck. Two Erotes spinning iynx to arouse desire and two votive dolls with cut limbs, the bride’s doubles, are symmetrically suspended. At the centre, a pyramidal element in the shape of a conical top ensures the stability of the earring and perhaps also metaphorically that of the wearer’s marriage. On other earrings, two twirling veiled dancers replace the spinning iynx, and above the spinning top, a crouching winged Nike throws knucklebones to attract good luck.152 The gesture is found on other pieces of jewellery, mainly rings, suspended in time, focused on propitiating the success of the union. The throws could be repeated until the desired result was obtained, as Aphrodite’s lover does in pseudo-Lucian.153 A necklace from a Hellenistic tomb in Akanthos (late 4th-3rd cent.), in northern Greece,154 also contains elements relating to games. Among the miniature gold pendants are a spinning top and a knucklebone, a turtle that could refer to the game of torti-tortoise, chelichelone, like the mask of Silenus, a protector of youth.155 The other elements of the necklace allude to the protection of women’s health and marriage: a poppy seed,156 Heracles’ club and a knot.
Fig. 3.37. Gold earrings, 340-300. Berlin, Antikensammlung G.I. 165/166.

16The game of knucklebones is played between girls in the domestic space on a pyxis in New York, which unfolds three scenes of play, that of ‘passe-boule’ with a ball157 and perhaps two others of knucklebones (fig. 3.16a-c; 425-400). The box itself may have contained knucklebones, as suggested by the astragalos-shaped lid.158 On a cup in the style of the Sotades Painter,159 a young woman seated on a stool, wearing a sakkos, throws two knucklebones into the air and watches them fly away, maybe like her wishes. Behind her, a bag suspended in the background may have contained some of them.
17The aspiration to marital success and bliss seems to be associated with the throwing of knucklebones in the premarital context of a red-figure lekythos in Baltimore (fig. 3.38; c. 350).160 A young woman sitting on a chair with a backrest faces a satyr. Standing on the left, a young man, who could represent the future groom, looks at her, as well as two Erotes and Aphrodite. Eight knucklebones are visible in white paint, three on the back of the young woman’s outstretched hand and one between her index and middle fingers, while the satyr has only caught one on the back of his hand; three more astragaloi fall to the ground (fig. 3.38b). Eros crowns her as a sign of the forthcoming nuptials.
Fig. 3.38a, b. Lekythos attributed to the Apollonia Painter, c. 350. Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum 48.84.

Notes de bas de page
122See Part 2. Gymnastic games.
123This requirement explains the choice of Achilles and Ajax as partners in the famous game scene; see above Part 1. Heroic games.
124Rf lekythos, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1875, 75.2.9; BAPD 9515; Neils, Oakley 2003: 270, no. 77.
125The sticks of the two female players have no visible whip straps, but they could be split rods.
126Rf lekythos Boston, coll. J. Herrmann Jr; BAPD 21583 (Bosanquet P.); Oakley 1997: 246-247, figs. 11-14; Oakley 2020: 15: 17, fig. 1.12a-b. Between the heads of the two girls: ΚΑΛΕ. https://www.avi.unibas.ch/DB/searchform.html?ID=8154.
127Rf pyxis lid, Athens, National Museum BS 58; ARV2 1172.2 (Aison) (“object of unknown purpose [shaped like a tin hat]”); BAPD 215607; Zarkadas 2009.
128On this type of pyxis decoration, Lissarrague 1991.
129Zarkadas 2009: 323-324.
130Rf lekythos, Athens, National Museum, coll. M. Vlastos-Serpieris; ARV2 845.163 (Sabouroff P.); BAPD 212311; Oakley 2004a: 56, fig. 33.
131Rf cup, Brussels, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire A891; ARV2 771.2, Add2 287; BAPD 209537; Williams 2006 (signed as potter by Hegesiboulos, workshop of Sotades P.). Williams 2006: 308-309, no. 94.
132Burn 1985.
133E.g., PGM XVIIa 1-25: “[…] until she is scourged by you and comes desiring me” (transl. Betz 1986). On the image of the whip, Faraone 1990a: 60-64.
134Theoc. 2.30 (transl. N. Hopkinson, Loeb).
135Rf Apulian pelike, Matera, Museo Nazionale Domenico Ridola 14294; Schneider-Herrmann, Trendall 1975; Schauenburg 1976a: 45, fig. 24.
136Giuman 2020: 35. See Anth. Pal. 6.276 (Hippe: hair and knucklebones) and 6.280 (Timareta: tambourine, ball, hair, and maybe a doll). On the way the proteleia were conducted, Brulé 2007; Gherchanoc 2012a: 24-29.
137Costanzo 2022: 145, fig. 7; Bellia 2022: 194, fig. 12.
138On dances at wedding parties, Dasen, Verbanck-Piérard 2022: 362-364; Lonsdale 1993: 214-218, figs. 24-25; Avronidaki 2014; Oakley 2004b: 312-314; Delavaud-Roux 1994: 91-113.
139Rf chous frgt, Tübingen, Archäologisches Institut 1219/E174; BAPD 11634 (Helen P.); Schefold, Jung 1989: 117, fig. 96.
140See Redfield 2003; Mackin 2018.
141Rf Apulian pelike, Morlanwelz, Musée royal de Mariemont 2016/47; Dasen, Verbanck 2022: 358-361, fig. 11-12, with two more Apulian scenes, stressing the funerary function of theses vases; Dasen, Verbanck 2024: 11-13, figs 5-7.
142Rf Apulian bell-krater from Gela, in Syracuse, Museo Arch. Regionale Paolo Orsi 36465; BAPD 9003794; Schauenburg 1976a: 42, fig. 14; CVA Syracuse, Museo archeologico nazionale 1, 1941 (P.E. Arias), IVE, pl. 10.3.
143Rf pyxis, Athens, Paul and Alexandra Kanellopoulos Museum Δ 117; BAPD 7; Schauenburg 1976a: 50, fig. 21.
144Ceccarelli 1998: 61-63, pls. IX-XIV. See the presence of Eros on a hydria in Copenhagen, Ceccarelli 1998, pl. IX, no. 48.
145E.g., bf epinetron, Paris, Musée du Louvre MNC 624, with a gynaeceum scene on one side and Amazons on the other; ABV 481 (Diosphos P.); BAPD 303430; Badinou 2003: 44-36, E 19, pl. 12 with parallels E 20-21 (workshops of Sappho P. and Diosphos P.).
146See the seminal article by Loraux 1981 on the comparison between the pain endured by a wounded warrior and that of childbirth (e.g., Hom. Il. 267-272). On this struggle inside the womb of the child seeking to emerge, Dasen 2015a: 137 (with previous bibliography).
147Call. Epigr. 1.8 (transl. D.L. Clayman, Loeb) = Anth. Pal. 7.89.
148Plut. De Is. et Os. 356E (transl. F.C. Babbitt, Loeb). See Courcelle 1951.
149Cic. Div. 2.41, on a child’s hand, puer, who mixes and draws spells from Palestrina. See also Tib. 1.3.9-13. On the use of children to draw lots, Johnston 2001; Loriol 2019; Dasen 2020; Borgeaud 2022.
150Lambrugo 2023b.
151Gold earrings from Kyme, in Berlin, Antikensammlung G.I. 165/166; Schwarzmaier 2020: 77-78, fig. 2.
152Gold earrings from Calymnos, Berlin, Antikensammlungen Misc. 10823a. b; Schwarzmaier 2020: 77-78, fig. 1. The author mentions in n. 3 the discovery in 2001 of a similar pair in a tomb on the same island.
153Ps.-Luc. Am. 16: “But, if as usually happens he made an indifferent throw on to his table, and the dice revealed an unpropitious result, he would curse all Cnidus and show utter dejection as if at an irremediable disaster; but a minute later he would snatch up the dice and try to cure by another throw his earlier lack of success” (transl. M.D. MacLeod, Loeb) See Anac. frgt 398, the knucklebones of Love are: “madness and uproar” (transl. D.A. Campbell, Loeb); Anth. Pal. 12.47 (Meleager): “Love, the baby still in his mother’s lap, playing at dice in the morning, played my soul away” (transl. W.R. Paton, Loeb).
154Dasen 2015a: 300-301, fig. 10.10 and 2015b: 196-197, pl. 11b.
155On the mask game with a Silenus head, see Wyler 2008.
156On amulets from the sanctuary of Demeter and Core in Corinth depicting poppy seeds, Klinger 2024.
157See above Part 2. Gymnastic games.
158Rf Attic pyxis, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 06.1021.119a, b, Rogers Fund, 1906; BAPD 4193; Beck 1975: 51, no. 311; Carè 2012: 108, fig. 4.
159Rf Attic cup, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.791; ARV2 771.4 (Sotades Workshop); BAPD 209539; Pfisterer-Haas 2003: 170, no. J 45, pl. 42, 2.
160Rf lekythos from Apollonia, Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery 48.84; BAPD 7782 (Apollonia P.); CVA Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery 1, 1934 (D.M. Robinson): 37-38, figs. 11.4, pls. 39-40; Klinger 2022: 86, figs. 5-6.
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