Aristot. de Mund. c. 6. translated by Apuleius, p. 20. Herod. ii. 48. See Comment. ad Poll. vii. 189. Duport. ad Theophr. Char. p. 308. This juggler having, for his ill behaviour, been driven from Athens, flew to Philip, with whom such persons were always in favour. Dem. Olynth. i. § 7. Footnote 466: Sat. ii. 7. 81. seq. Plerumque simulacra de ligno facta nervis moventur.—Vet. Schol. A very extraordinary puppet, in the form of a silver skeleton, was, according to Petronius Arbiter,[467] exhibited at the court of Nero; for, like the Egyptians, this imperial profligate appears to have been excited to sensual indulgences by the remembrance of the grave: “Let us eat and drink,” cried he, “for tomorrow we die.” The skeleton being placed upon the table, in the midst of the tyrant’s orgies, threw its limbs strangely about, and bent its form into various attitudes with wonderful flexibility, which having performed once and again, and then suddenly ceasing to move, the master of the feast exclaimed, “Alas, alas! what a mere nothing is man! Like unto this must we all be when Orcus shall have borne us hence. Therefore let us live while enjoyment is in our power.” But to return to the children of Hellas. Among the earliest sports of the Greek boy was whipping the bembyx or top,[468] which would appear to have been usually practised in those open spaces occurring at the junction of several roads:— “Where three ways meet there boys with tops are found, That ply the lash and urge them round and round.”[469] Sometimes also, as with us, they spun their tops with cord. The amusement is thus described by Tibullus:[470] “Namque agor, ut per plana citus tota verbere turben, Quem celer assuetâ versitat arte puer.” Footnote 467: Satyric. p. 80. Helenop. 1610. Wouwer. Anim. p. 418. Erhard. Symbol. p. 611. Plut. Conv. Sept. Sap. ch. 2.—A story is told of an Ionian juggler who proceeded to Babylon to perform what he deemed a wonderful feat before the Great King, and the feat was this: fixing a long point of steel on a wall, and retiring to a considerable distance, he threw at it a number of soft round pellets of dough, with so nice an aim that every one of them was penetrated, the last pellet driving back the others. Max. Tyr. Diss. xix. p. 225. Anim. ad Poll. vii. 189. p. 532. The hoop, too, so familiar to our own schoolboys, formed one of the playthings of Hellenic children. It was sometimes made of bronze, about three feet in diameter,[471] and adorned with little spherical bells and movable rings, which jingled as it rolled. The instrument employed to urge “the rolling circle’s speed,”