Hoops and Coming of Age in Greek and Roman Antiquity Véronique Dasen
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Hoops and Coming of Age in Greek and Roman Antiquity Véronique Dasen To cite this version: Véronique Dasen. Hoops and Coming of Age in Greek and Roman Antiquity. 8th International Toy Research Association World Conference, Jul 2018, Paris, France. hal-02170802 HAL Id: hal-02170802 https://hal-univ-paris13.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02170802 Submitted on 2 Jul 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Hoops and Coming of Age in Greek and Roman Antiquity1 Véronique Dasen Professor of Classical Archaeology, Fribourg University / PI ERC Locus Ludi. Abstract Ancient hoops, usually made of wood or metal, do not survive archaeologically, but literary and iconographic representations provide information regarding the materials used, ergonomics, as well as their symbolic and cultural values. Hoops were intimately associated with youth, especially male, and this paper aims at expanding the understanding of their collective, social and religious dimensions for boys and young men. In ancient Greece, the hoop was used in physical training at the palaestra and in the gymnasium. In Rome, it was associated with an idealized image of Greek athleticism and used in public spaces, such as the Campus Martius. These hoop based activities demonstrate the porosity of the boundaries between entertainment, performance, sport, and competition. The symbolic association of the hoop toy with the life passages of young men is expressed by metaphorical images. In Greek iconography, the hoop is the attribute of Ganymede, abducted by Zeus on Olympus, eternally young among the gods. The image of a mortal player in a funerary context thus transmits the hope of a form of immortality in a blessed afterlife. In Roman pictures, the hoop is transformed into the wheel of Tuchē, as a symbol of fate, or takes a cosmic dimension in the form of the zodiacal ring. Keywords Game, Ganymede, hoop, life passage, leisure, spinning top, sport, toy, wheel, youth. 1 This paper is part of the European Research Council (ERC) project No. 741520 Locus Ludi: The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity (2017-2022) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation (https://locusludi.ch/). Proceedings of the 8th International Toy Research Association World Conference Toys and Material Culture: Hybridisation, Design and Consuption (Paris, 11-13 July 2018) 2 HOOPS AND COMING OF AGE IN GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY Apart from a few 19th century researchers2, little in-depth discussions have ex- amined the function of ancient hoops. Modern scholars usually incidentally men- tion Greek and Roman hoops as ludic devices associated with physical training and leisure in Classical antiquity3. Like other games, however, hoop rolling also transmits cultural values, revealed by the kind of skills based training, the social context of the play, and the set of associated activities, involving individuals of specific age groups, sex and social status. The image of the hoop is also used as a metaphorical operator based on widely shared visual and literary references which shed new light on ancient views about youth and the symbolic agency of play. This paper will focus on the collective, male, dimension of the game in Greek and Roman societies4. Firstly, a number of methodological questions will be addressed relating to hoop materials, for example, organic or metal, self-made, specially manufactured or recycled, and ergonomics controlled using a stick or hook. Se- condly, I will attempt to identify the players (age group, social status), the context and the aim of their activities (collective or solitary, in public or private spaces, as leisure, athletic training or competition), and thirdly, explore the symbolic and metaphorical values of the hoop, in particular those associated with coming of age and life passages of young men in ancient Greece. Materiality and ergonomics No ancient Greek or Roman hoop is archaeologically recorded, primarily due to being fabricated from degradable organic materials, for example willow twigs, or recycled devices, like wooden or metal bands from a barrel or wheel tyre5. Some ancient authors describe hoops, mostly in the Roman period, and often very brief- ly. Greek and Latin vocabulary, however, delivers a privileged access to the collec- tive imaginary dimension of the object, whereas visual representations provide evidence about its size and ergonomics. 2 Becq de Fouquières 1869, 159-170; Lafaye 1873. 3 In ancient sport: Harris 1972, pp. 133-141. 4 On women acrobats using hoops, e.g. Xenophon, Symposium, 2.8; dasen 2019a. 5 Cf. Man making a ring, or hoop, with a rope or twig on a red-figure Lucanian oinochoe, c. 340 BCE; Paris, Louvre K 547. http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=11883&langue=fr VERONIQUE DASEN 3 Materiality The Greek and Latin words for “hoop” are associated with a circular rotation as well as speed, suggesting swift movement and racing. In Greek, the commonest word, trochos, ὁ τροχός, is related with trechō, “I run”6. The term may mean a wheel, circle or other objects of similar shape, such as a ring, pill, or cake, as well as rotating items, like spinning tops, potter’s wheel, or the sundisk. When the accent is placed on the first omicron, τρόχος, the word means a circular race or a running space. These two different meanings dependent on the accent placement has mislead the reading of an often-quoted passage of Hippocrates in Regimen in Health (2.63.3), interpreted by Émile Littré as a descrip- tion of racing with a hoop in the gymnasium: “La course au cerceau dilate le moins la chair, elle l'atténue et la contracte ainsi que le ventre surtout, parce que, précipitant le plus la respiration, elle attire l'humide le plus rapidement.” (Du Régime, Littré vI 579-581). Hippocrates actually describes different types of runs, and modern editions have replaced τροχός with τρόχος, “the run”, as in Loeb edition: “Running in a circle dissolves the flesh least, but reduces and contracts the flesh and the belly most, because, as it causes the most rapid respiration, it is the quickest to draw the mois- ture to itself” (Regimen in Health, transl. W.H.S. Jones, Loeb)7. Similarly, trochos and trochazein in Euripides (Medea, 46-47) and Theophrastus (Characters, 14.10) mean circular running, not hoop rolling. Krikos, “the ring”, describes a hoop in a first century BC honorary decree in Priene8, and krikēlasia, “hoop-driving”, after ἐλαύνω, “to drive, to strike”, is found in Antyllus, a Greek medical author of the Roman imperial period (2nd cent. CE), quoted by Oribasius (4th cent. CE)9. In Latin, beside trochus, the Latinized form of the Greek trochos, orbis similarly means a circle or a disc-shaped object as well as a circular motion or rotation. Rota, “the wheel”, is also found describing the toy. Martial (Epigrams, 14.168) uses trochus and rota as syno- nyms. The late Latin circellus, diminutive of circus “circle”, is associated with the French cercel for the stave of a barrel (12th century)10. 6 See Liddell, Scott, Jones, s.v. τροχός/τρόχος: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3dtroxo% 2Fs1 7 Same reading in the edition by R. Joly, Belles Lettres, CUF. 8 IPriene 112; see also Strabo, Geography, 5.3.8. 9 Collectiones medicae, 6.26, ed. J. Raeder, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum VI.1.1, Leipzig and Berlin, Teubner, 1928. Antyllus uses also τροχός. 10 Dictionnaire de l’Académie française 1835, s.v. cerceau: “cercle en bois léger que les enfants font courir devant eux comme une roue”. The etymology of the word “hoop” is uncertain, after Old English *hop, 4 HOOPS AND COMING OF AGE IN GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY The poet Martial (1st cent. CE) paid great attention to children’s ability to trans- form everyday objects into toys11. He observed that they easily knew how to use a wheel tyre as a hoop: “Hoop (trochus). The wheel (inducenda rota) must be fitted with a tyre. you give me a useful present. This will be a hoop (trochus) to boys (pu- eri), but a tyre (cantus) to me” (Epigrams, 14.169; transl. d.R. Shackleton Bailey, Loeb). Actual wheels, used as toys, appear in a few pictures displaying imaginary contests, as on the famous courtyard mosaic floor of the imperial palace in Constan- tinople. Four children are running, each with two small wheels controlled by a stick (fig. 1; 5th cent. CE)12. The children wear blue or green tunics, mimicking the Blues and Greens factions. They run around the metae or conical poles with great skill and concentration – one looking backwards at his rival, as though they were real chari- oteers in the hippodrome. Figure 1. Mosaic floor, courtyard of the Palace (5th cent. CE). Istanbul, Great Palace Mosaic Museum (5th cent. CE). Photo dick Osseman. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Istanbul_Mosaic_Museum_dec_2016_1527_Panora ma.jpg Creative Commons International license. The motif derives from earlier depictions of Erotes similarly bowling small disks on third century children’s sarcophagi, sometimes in the agonistic context of “curve, ring”. 11 Cf. Crawford 2009 on the toy stage in objects’ biography. 12 Brett 1942, 37, pl. 10a. VERONIQUE DASEN 5 a circus race suggested by a meta or pole13. On some Roman period gems, set in a ring or pendant, Eros or Hermes roll a wheel like a hoop (Hermes and Hermes- Thot: e.g.