Amongst the Hellenes the earliest toy consisted, as in most other countries, of the rattle, said to be the invention of the philosopher Archytas.[457] To this succeeded balls of many colours,[458] with little chariots, sometimes purchased at Athens in the fair held during the feast of Zeus.[459] The common price of a plaything of this kind would appear to have been an obolos. The children themselves, as without any authority might with certainty be inferred, employed their time in erecting walls with sand,[460] in constructing little houses,[461] in building and carving ships, in cutting carts or chariots out of leather, in fashioning pomegranate rinds into the shape of frogs,[462] and in forming with wax a thousand diminutive images, which pursued afterwards during school hours subjected them occasionally to severe chastisement.[463] Footnote 457: Aristot. Polit. viii. 6. 1. Footnote 458: Dion. Chrysost. Nat. viii. p. 281. Footnote 459: Aristoph. Nub. 862. sqq. et Schol. Rav. in loc. Cf. Suid. v. Ἁμαξὶς, t. i. p. 194. b. Pollux, x. 168. Footnote 460: Damm. v. Ἄθυρμα. Footnote 461: Lucian. Hermot. § 33. Footnote 462: Aristoph. Nub. 877. sqq. et Schol. Footnote 463: Lucian. de Somn. § 2. Another amusement which the children of Hellas shared with their elders was that afforded by puppets,[464] which were probably an invention of the remotest antiquity. Numerous women appear to have earned their livelihood by carrying round from village to village these ludicrous and frolicsome images, which were usually about a cubit in height, and may be regarded as the legitimate ancestors of Punch and Judy. By touching a single string, concealed from the spectators, the operator could put her mute performers in action, cause them to move every limb in succession, spread forth the hands, shrug the shoulders, turn round the neck, roll the eyes, and appear to look at the audience.[465] After this, by other contrivances within the images, they could be made to go through many humorous evolutions resembling the movements of the dance. These exhibitors, frequently of the male sex, were known by the name of Neurospastæ. This art passed, together with other Grecian inventions, into Italy, where it was already familiar to the public in the days of Horace, who, in speaking of princes governed by favourites, compares them to puppets in the hands of the showman. “Tu, mihi qui imperitas, aliis servis miser; atque Duceris, ut nervis alienis mobile lignum.”[466] Footnote 464: Buleng. de Theat. l. i. c. 36. sqq. Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 645. Eustath. in Odyss. δ. p. 176. Mount. Not. ad Dem. Olynth. ii. § 5. Perizon. ad Æl. Var. Hist. viii. 7. See also the article Marionnette in the Encyclopédie Française; and Caylus, Rec. d’Antiq. t. vi. p. 287. t. iv. pl. 80. no. i. Footnote 465: