Greek children had toys of various kinds, though the excessive luxury attained in these at the present day was unknown to antiquity. A very ancient toy is the rattle, usually a metal or earthenware jar filled with little stones, sometimes made in human form; and there were other noisy toys, with which the children played and the nurses strove to amuse them; though complaints were sometimes made that foolish nurses by these means prevented the children from going to sleep. A very popular toy, found in many pictures in children’s hands, was a little two-wheeled cart (compare Fig. 63), or else a simple solid wheel, without spokes, on a long pole--a cheap toy which could be purchased for an obol (about three-halfpence). Larger carriages were also used as toys, which the children drew themselves, and drove about their brothers and sisters or companions, as we see in Fig. 64. Sometimes tame dogs or goats were harnessed to them, and the boys rode merrily along, cracking their whips. (Compare Fig. 65.) The custom of letting the nurses draw the children in perambulators in the street seems to have been unknown, but baby-carriages, in which the children were drawn about in the room, are mentioned by the ancient physicians. (Compare Fig. 60.) [Illustration: FIG. 66.] The little girls liked to play with all kinds of earthenware vessels, pots, and dishes; and, like our little girls, they made their first attempts at cooking with these. Many such are found in the graves. More popular however, even in ancient times, were the dolls, made of wax or clay and brightly coloured; sometimes [Illustration: FIG. 67.] with flexible limbs, like the one in Fig. 66, or with clothes to take on and off, and representing all manner of gods, heroes, or mortals; dolls’ beds were also known. Though boys may have sometimes played with these figures, or even made them for themselves out of clay or wax, yet we generally find them in the hands of girls, who seem to have taken pleasure in them even after the first years of childhood; indeed, it was not uncommon, since Greek girls married very early, for them to play with their dolls up to the time of their marriage, and just before their wedding to take these discarded favourites, with their whole wardrobe, to some temple of the maiden Artemis, and there dedicate them as a pious offering. [Illustration: FIG. 68.] The boys delighted in other more masculine pleasures. Like our own boys, they played with box-wood tops and whips, singing a merry song the while, or else they bowled their iron hoops, to which bells or rings were attached. The hoop was a favourite toy until the age of youth, and we often find it on vase paintings in the hands of quite big boys. (Compare Fig. 67.) We may certainly assume that [Illustration: FIG. 69.]