Vid. Festus, v. Puelli.—In Syria children were sacrificed to the goddess, in like manner with other victims, by being tied up in a sack and then flung down from the lofty propylæa of her temple, their parents, in the mean while, overwhelming them with contumely, and protesting they were not children, but oxen.—Lucian. De Syriâ Deâ, § 58. CHAPTER II. BIRTH-FEAST—NAMING THE CHILD.—NURSERY—NURSERY TALES—SPARTAN FESTIVAL. To quit, however, this melancholy topic: while the poor, as we have seen, were driven by despair to imbrue their hands in the blood of their offspring, their more wealthy neighbours celebrated the birth of a child[373] with a succession of banquets and rejoicings. Of these, the first was held on the fifth day from the birth, when took place the ceremony called Amphidromia, confounded by some ancient authors with the festival of the tenth day.[374] On this occasion the accoucheuse or the nurse, to whose care the child was now definitively consigned,[375] having purified her hands with water,[376] ran naked[377] with the infant in her arms, and accompanied by all the other females of the family, in the same state, round the hearth,[378] which was regarded as the altar of Hestia, the Vesta of the Romans. By this ceremony the child was initiated in the rites of religion and placed under the protection of the fire goddess, probably with the same view that infants are baptized among us. Footnote 373: More particularly that of a son.—Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 307. Footnote 374: Sch. Aristoph. Lysist. 757. Footnote 375: Etym. Mag. 89. 54. Footnote 376: Suid. in v. t. i. p. 214. d. Footnote 377: Hesych. in. v. δρομιάφιον. Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 20. Brunck, in Aristoph. Av. 922. Footnote 378: Harpocrat. in v. Cf. not. Gronov. p. 26. Meanwhile the passer-by was informed that a fifth-day feast was celebrating within, by symbols suspended on the street-door, which, in case of a boy, consisted in an olive crown; and of a lock of wool, alluding to her future occupations, when it was a girl.[379] Athenæus, apropos of cabbage, which was eaten on this occasion, as well as by ladies “in the straw,”[380] as conducing to create milk, quotes a comic description of the Amphidromia from a drama of Ephippos, which proves they were well acquainted with the arts of joviality.