In the mythology of the Greeks one may find mention of the august ancestors of the marionettes. Passages in the Iliad describe the marvellous golden tripods fashioned by Vulcan which moved of themselves. A host of great articulated idols were to be found in the temples all over Greece. These were moved, Charles Magnin avers, by various devices such as quicksilver, leadstone, springs, etc. There was Jupiter Ammon, borne upon the shoulders of the priests, who indicated with his head the direction he wished to travel. There were the Apollo of Heliopolis, the Theban Venus, the statues created by Daedalus and many others, all manipulated by priests from within the hollow bodies. [Illustration: JOINTED DOLLS OR PUPPETS Terra-cotta, probably Attic [Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]] But aside from these inspiring deities, in fact right along with them, Greek puppetry grew up and flourished. Yorick writes, “Greece from remotest times of which any accounts have come down to us had marionette theatres in the public places of all the most populated cities. She had famous showmen whose names, recorded on the pages of the most illustrious writers, have triumphed over death and oblivion. She had her ‘balletti’ and pantomimes exclusively conceived and preordained for the play of ‘pupazzi,’ etc.” Eminent mathematicians interested themselves in perfecting the mechanism of the dolls until, as Apuleius wrote, “Those who direct the movement of the little wooden figures have nothing else to do but to pull the string of the member they wish to set in motion and immediately the head bends, the eyes turn, the hands lend themselves to any action and the elegant little person moves and acts as though it were alive.” A pleasant hyperbole of Apuleius perhaps, but some of us credulously prefer to have faith in it.