Introduction

1Games and play on words are deeply intertwined. The Sophists more than others emphasized play and, as Armand D’Angour put it, transferred it from symposia and other activities to that of verbal skill, ultimately becoming masters of play: “play on words, on moral values, on distinctions between illusion and reality.”1 Sophistic education was primarily focused on word manipulation in a trend that dominated the Athenian classical and post-classical cultural production. From this perspective, it becomes very intriguing when games as a genre of performance in children’s (but also adults’) lives attract special attention in philosophical, lexicographic, and encyclopedic texts, among others. In this chapter, I first consider the representation of games in Pollux’s Onomasticon as a choice of the author’s attention and then focus on the Midas game as a case study that presents vestiges of the performance of children’s tag games. Tag games have been popular in antiquity but a tag game that names a specific historical figure becomes more intriguing about the cultural dynamics at play. This paper further explores how Pollux not only preserves traces of the poetics of childhood, but also offers an intertextual perspective onto ancient games, and further deconstructs aspects of low and high literature. Games, such as the Midas game as I argue further, offer a complex view on the interactions between children’s and adult literature and performance genres and their socio-historical contexts.

1. Contextualizing Ancient Games and their Sources

2The best sources, among others, for ancient games, are Athenaeus (end of 2^nd c. / beginning of 3^rd c. CE) and Pollux (2^nd c. CE). While Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists is fundamentally different compared to Pollux’s Onomasticon, as Athenaeus reconstructs words placing them in a library system and creating mental library maps, both Pollux and Athenaeus live in a world of words, giving lexicographical information, and both constitute a great source of literary quotations. This pair makes more sense when one considers that both originated from Naucratis, are roughly contemporaries, with Athenaeus being probably slightly younger, living at the times of Marcus Aurelius. Athenaeus also seems to know Commodus, the emperor whom Pollux addresses in each book of his Onomasticon. Both left Naucratis and went to Rome, where Pollux had Commodus as one of his students and whose patronage he enjoyed.2 As a result of this patronage, he was sent to Athens to teach rhetoric. One can further say that both these men share in their upbringing and education similar interests that are manifested with some common motifs in their puzzling works. The word paignion (παίγνιον) is frequently featured in Athenaeus, and Pollux dedicates a good portion of what now seems to be part of the ninth book, after a complex editing process, to games.3 Coincidentally, much earlier, Naucratis is also an important spatial reference in Plato’s Phaedrus in the critical passage that discusses the invention of numbers, calculus, geometry, astronomy, but also the game of the pessoi and cubes and letter.4 Games, creativity, and ability to invent are rooted together in Plato in a manner that has shaped thinking about games and partially explains later scholastic interest, as it is a topic deserving rigorous attention with a long past trajectory that makes it a subject well worthy of the lexicographic lens.

3Leaving Athenaeus aside, I would like to focus on Pollux, as this is a thinker who put games as a topic as important as coins, towns, buildings, rituals, and theater among a few of his themes.5 The ninth book of Pollux’s Onomasticon focuses on parts of cities, then moves on to buildings, coins, and finally, games. It is not clear whether there is some loose linguistic association from one part of this book to the other. Common names are featured for often disparate notional references. The name chelone, for example, namely “tortoise”, describes both the famous tortoise game, a girls’ tag game, but also a type of coin in wide circulation and a war machine.6

4Similarly, the name Midas appears more than once; again, we have the reference to Midas in Onomasticon, book 4, a coin associated Midas, then, in the section on coins of book 9 and later a name which features the figure of Midas in its rhyme.7 Could one, possibly, imagine in the cases of both the tortoise and the Midas game that there is a further meaning to the coincidence that both of these names (referring to tag games) are also used to discuss the minting of coins? Such an association can be a highly speculative yet perhaps plausible explanation of the deeper connections in Pollux’s mind, or of the Onomasticon’s editors. Seeking to uncover what prompted the current structure of this idiosyncratic lexicographic writing or perhaps trying to detect what might be the logic of the seemingly random continuity from one section to the other could prove itself an impossible task enabling associative leaps. Yet, the presence of similar names, as referential markers for different semantics, is something that should probe further investigation. One of my goals is to contribute to our knowledge of what the underlying thought and currents are that shape the structure of the Onomasticon as we have it.

5Pollux’s dictionary is considered to be onomasiological, in the sense that the entries are not organized alphabetically (as it is usually the case in semasiological dictionaries) but follow conceptual classification. Several scholars think that the Onomasticon is the product of the debate and rivalry between those who favored a rigid linguistic purism, such as the hyperatticist Phrynichus, and those practicing a more relaxed Atticism, Pollux being the representative of the latter trend. It is essential to contextualize the dictionary as a whole as it gives us a window into the aesthetics and literary taste that inform most of the examples. As part of this aesthetic trend, Pollux uses a broader spectrum of authors, such as New Comedy, especially Menander, although deemed inferior to Old Comedy by the hyperatticists. It registers words from other literary dialects —Doric, Ionic, Aeolian. The guiding principle, not always clear is part of a structure that is based on “a tension between order and disorder” as Jason König has put it.8 This registry is further indicative of the kinds of literary trends that have filtered the information in Pollux’s work and is particularly relevant for a discussion concerning games. Pollux’s Onomasticon, for the most part, is a registry of variant words. One could even say this sequence of words, often synonyms, could (in, once again, a highly speculative mode) be part of a game or could even reflect a performance when the entry word needs to be followed by as many synonyms as possible, a kind of scrabble that could perhaps even be performed. Pollux himself, in a programmatic manner, writes that his Onomasticon is to find as many synonyms as possible:

ἐπεὶ δ’ ἐκεῖνον ἡ σωτηρία τῆς οἰκουμένης ἀπασχολεῖ, ἔγωγ’ οὖν ἕν γέ τί σοι πρὸς εὐγλωττίαν συμβαλοῦμαι. ὀνομαστικὸν μὲν οὖν τῷ βιβλίῳ τὸ ἐπίγραμμα, μηνύει δὲ ὅσα τε συνώνυμα ὡς ὑπαλλάττειν δύνασθαι, καὶ οἷς ἂν ἕκαστα δηλωθείη· πεφιλοτίμηται γὰρ οὐ τοσοῦτον εἰς πλῆθος ὁπόσον εἰς κάλλους ἐκλογήν. οὐ μέντοι πάντα τὰ ὀνόματα περιείληφε τοῦτο τὸ βιβλίον· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἦν ῥᾴδιον ἑνὶ βιβλίῳ πάντα συλλαβεῖν.

Since his main care is the saving of the entire world, I will contribute one thing for your sake, aiming towards eloquence. The title of this book is Onomasticon, and it showcases as many synonyms as one can offer in exchange, and with which each word can be denoted. For this work has endeavored earnestly not as much to achieve plenitude (of synonyms) but more a selection of beauty. Therefore, this book has not comprised all the names in its contents; neither was it easy to put together everything in one book.9

6In Pollux’s catalogue of games, most of the games have a suffix -ινδα, which seems to be characteristic of many words denoting games, such as dielkystinda, “pull-game”, kryptinda “hide and seek”, ostrakinda, “shell game” etc.10 Such a suffix is not easy to trace within Greek and Indo-European phonology, as already observed by Pierre Chantraine: “l’origine de ces adverbes est claire, mais le suffixe qui s’y trouve impliqué présente une structure singulière. Aucune analyse ne permet d’expliquer le groupe -νδ”.11 P. Chantraine, quoting a statement by Herodotus, suggested that the suffix has its ultimate origin in Asia Minor, particularly in Lydia.12 This would not be incongruent with the Herodotean view that Lydians invented many of the games.13 Francesco Dedè following the lead by a 1933 P. Chantraine article on the suffixes for names of games argues for a micro-Asiatic origin of the suffix using as an argument the presence in the area of several place names ending in -ινδα (e.g. Πιγίνδα in Caria, Σίνδα in Pisidia).14 Paola Dardano has also argued that the suffix - ίδᾱς, which in the Homeric poems forms patronymics and is later recontextualized as a suffix for deriving proper names, would have entered Greek via the Lydian language.15

7Let us look back at the list of different names, especially those ending in –inda:

ἐρῶ δὲ καὶ ἄλλων παιδιῶν ὀνόματα ταὐτὸν ἐχουσῶν σχῆμα τῇ καταλήξει τῶν ὀνομάτων• βασιλίνδα, ὀστρακίνδα, διελκυστίνδα, μυΐνδα, χυτρίνδα, φρυγίνδα, κυνητίνδα, ἀκινητίνδα σχοινοφιλίνδα, σκαπέρδα, ἐφεντίνδα, στρεπτίνδα, πλειστοβολίνδα, ἀποδιδρασκίνδα…

I will mention the names of other games as well which have the same suffix in their names, such as basilinda [king game], ostrakinda [shell game], dielkystinda [pull-game], myinda [fly game], chytrinda [pot-game], phryginda [game with roasted beans], kynetinda [kissing game], akinetinda [stay-motionless-who-stirs-first game], schoinophylinda [hunt-the-slipper], skaperda [tug of war], efentinda [catch-ball-game], streptinda [turn-over-game], pleistovolinda [dice-playing], apodidraskinda [all-but-one run away game]…16

8The games presented here have a distinctive suffix which, if indeed, as P. Dardano put it, comes to Greek via Asiatic or, as F. Dedè put it, has micro-Asiatic origin, then it is worth also thinking how and why this suffix is associated with gaming. Suffixes such as those in patronymics, as, for example, when proper names ending in –idas are read and understood as such, can potentially reflect some spatial reference. Games can be seen from early on, not just a fundamental category on its own, but even more as a spectrum of reference to nouns that one distinctively identifies with marked suffixes attaching a certain collective meaning to the grammatical form. It is also noteworthy that these are not games that one plays alone, but they all require a community of players. This, further, underlines the semantic range that shapes the marked naming. Just like a distinctive name of a place, or a patronymic that links family members, games are thought from early on as a referential mark-up that refers to a community of people that participate in it. In that sense, the nouns’ suffix in –ινδα is even more intriguing. Likewise, if we look back at the initial list Pollux gives, the only game that does not end in -ινδα, skaperda (σκαπέρδα) etymologized with roots from the words skapos (σκάπος), happens to be the only one that can be played with one or two players alone which marks a stark difference compared to the other names in this list.

9While Pollux’s Onomasticon remains as one of the most important testimonies on ancient traditions of games, one wonders whether this is an erudite naming and, if so, why. In other words, if we look at this material from the performance perspective, then it is worth asking this question: if children were to play the above-mentioned pot game, would they say something like “let’s play paixōmen chytrinda (παίξωμεν χυτρίνδα) or would they simplify this further by saying “let’s play Midas”, or even simply “chytra (χύτρα)”, the pot? The noun dielkustinda (διελκυστίνδα) could well be an erudite term and hardly a term a child would use to talk about this game. Similarly, would a child, for example, say, let us play the basilinda (βασιλίνδα) or simplify this to something like the basileus (βασιλεύς)? Some of these names are referred to in other sources such as the word ostrakinda (ὀστρακίνδα) which already appears in Aristophanes’ Knights whereas for most of the other words we do not have any attestations earlier than Pollux.17

10There is a possibility that Pollux both uses more erudite names as well as names that would circulate among the game-players themselves. In one case, that Pollux describes, which seems to be a popular girls’ game, with a distinctly gendered perspective, the game is not given with an –inda suffix as most others are. Namely the “tortoise” game, which is often referred to as chelichelōnē (χελιχελώνη), denotes both the tag game and the figure of the protagonist. A complex intertextual nexus can help us reconstruct this tradition of games that goes back long before Pollux, as it is also referred to by the poetess Erinna, and possibly is known much later as it is mentioned in Eustathius. Erinna, roughly five to six centuries earlier, in her Distaff refers to this game as chelunna (χελύννα, “remember how we used to play the ‘tortoise’”).18 Erinna gives a rare window through her recollection poetics with a unique Sapphic tone on how little girls would actually refer to this activity in that area (as it is given to us with a dialectic Aeolian form) to talk about what seems to be a well-known ancient game throughout the Greek world (if not beyond). This is a theatrical game, a simple dialogue enacted by a group of girls, one of which pretends to be the tortoise. In the context of the game, one would safely assume, as our sources suggest, that each time a different girl plays the tortoise, the others run around her. Pollux for this one, as also for the Midas game, goes out of his way to mention the accompanying chants.

Ἡ δὲ χελιχελώνη, παρθένων ἐστὶν ἡ παιδιά, παρόμοιόν τι ἔχουσα τῇ χύτρᾳ· ἡ μὲν γὰρ κάθηται, καὶ καλεῖται χελώνη, αἱ δὲ περιτρέχουσιν ἀνερωτῶσαι·
« χελιχελώνη, τι ποιεῖς ἐν τῷ μέσῳ; »
ἡ δὲ ἀποκρίνεται·
« ἔρια μαρύομαι καὶ κρόκην Μιλησίαν. »
Εἶτα ἐκεῖναι πάλιν ἐκβοῶσιν·
« ὁ δ’ἔκγονός σου τί ποιῶν ἀπώλετο; »
ἡ δέ φησι·
« λευκᾶν ἀφ’ ἵππων εἰς θάλασσαν ἅλατο. »

And the torti-tortoise is a girls’ game, similar to the “pot”. For one girl sits down and is called the “tortoise” while the others run around her asking her:
“Torti-tortoise, what are you doing in the middle?”
and she responds:
“I am weaving wool and Milesian thread”
and then they say loudly to her back:
“your son, what was he doing when he died?”
and she says:
“he jumped into the sea from white horses”.

11At the exact moment when the “tortoise” says that the “son” died by jumping into the sea, the girl acting as “tortoise” would jump to one of the girls, and then a new person would play the role of the tortoise.19 The usual “title” given to this song/ game in the learned list of Pollux is chelichelōnē, a word which presents an initial germination with the initial cheli- matching the sound of the following chelone, translated typically as torti-tortoise possibly reflecting what the girls would say. Either this could be a reference to a cry or sound that little girls would produce when actually playing this game such as cheli, chelōnē (χέλι, χελώνη), with some kind or rhythm or it could also refer to a different sound that girls could make, something like “catch me, tortoise” which in Greek would be “hele, chelone” ἕλε, χελώνη). If that is the etymological thinking behind, then the game’s chief reference point (tortoise) makes a gesture towards the dominant performative mode (catching/ tag game, from ‘hele’ reproducing the actual sounds and recording what the girls could shout out during this game). The performative element shapes etymological thinking in how this game got registered in widely different sources that tend to be haunted by this etymological link.

2. The Midas Game: A Closer Look and Intertextual Connections

12One of the most popular circular games in antiquity seems to be the so-called “Pot” game (chytra) which enacts a dialogue between one child becoming the “pot” who plays with “Midas” while others run around kicking “the pot” who tries to catch or touch someone else to become “pot” ensuring circularity.20 Pollux’s Onomasticon transmits the poetics of this game, which similar to other circular children’s games, present a rudimentary yet cryptic dialogue between the players as they rotate their roles.

ἡ δὲ χυτρίνδα, ὁ μὲν ἐν μέσῳ κάθηται καὶ καλεῖται χύτρα, οἱ δὲ τίλλουσιν ἢ κνίζουσιν ἢ καὶ παίουσιν αὐτὸν περιθέοντες· ὁ δ’ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ περιστρεφομένου ληφθεὶς ἀντ’ αὐτοῦ κάθηται. ἔσθ’ ὅτε ὁ μὲν ἔχεται τῆς χύτρας κατὰ τὴν κεφαλὴν τῇ χειρὶ τῇ λαιᾷ, περιθέων ἐν κύκλῳ, οἱ δὲ παίουσιν αὐτὸν ἐπερωτῶντες ‘τί ἡ χύτρα;’ κἀκεῖνος ἀποκρίνεται ‘ἀναζεῖ.’ ἢ ‘τίς περὶ χύτραν;’ κἀκεῖνος ἀποκρίνεται ‘ἐγὼ Μίδας·’ οὗ δ’ ἂν τύχῃ τῷ ποδί, ἐκεῖνος ἀντ’ αὐτοῦ περὶ τὴν χύτραν περιέρχεται.

The game is called chytrinda. One is sitting in the middle and is called a “pot” while the others running around either poke him or scratch him or even hit him; but the one who is caught by the “pot” who turns from side to side to grab someone, sits down in his place. Sometimes, one holds the “pot” on the head with his left hand, going around in circle and the others hit him asking “what is the pot doing?” and he responds: “it boils” or “who has the pot?” and he responds “I, Midas.” And whoever he reaches with his foot, takes his place going round the “pot”.21

13While at first glance a simple children’s song that must have been popular enough for Pollux to transmit, this children’s game can give us information not only on childhood poetics, but even more on how and why certain mythical figures, like Midas, who had a long presence in Greek thinking and literature became an object of ridicule and play. The name Midas refers to a historical king who controlled a large area of central Anatolia until his death at the time of the Kimmerian invasion in the seventh century bce. However, this Midas, associated with Gordion, became a character in Greek and Latin literature closely connected to legends on wealth and wisdom or pseudo-wisdom, as the man who captured and questioned Silenus to learn the meaning of happiness. Already the association with satyrs makes him a character connected with dramatic performance through satyr drama and comedy.22 Looking at the complex intertextual relations with dramatic performance and the game poetics as it survives, we can further discern interesting intergenerational dialogues. Midas is not an uncommon reference on the comic stage and is a registered figure in Greek discourse. By looking at the translation into childhood poetics we can see both the interactions between children’s and adult genres but also delve into the wider problem of popular reception of comic verses beyond the formalized stage. Like today when a joke on TV or theater can be part of common discourse, this, I argue is what happened in the Midas case. A game can be created through words that circulate. For many it may seem effortless to make games in a joyful ambiance. Children’s songs translate what is both memorable and easily identifiable for their purposes, and this happens in unconscious rather than conscious ways. In other words, we are looking at the heart of oral transmission when we do not have a genius poet or steering poetic voice.

14A couple of notes on my methodology: I am using two different threads, the presence of Midas as a figure in Greek myth and lore, and also the comic stage, and the persistent use of pots as theatrical props creating slapstick humor and laughter in several comic moments from both extant comedies and fragments.23 By exploring those, my explicit purpose is to see through the fascinating dialogue around the common themes between children and adults’ genres of performance. Furthermore, I seek to delve into questions of not only generic interactions but also ritual and gender inversions and ideologies of othering individuals and groups of individuals in a seemingly playful tone. Ultimately, such rhymes both mirror and undermine adult performative modes but also channel ideologies.

15Let us take the first thread, Midas. Midas is known to be both the legendary wealthy man with origins from Phrygia but also, as an added layer, the seeker of wisdom. The deep antithesis that is inherent in this figure and that has not been explained in any convincing way is that he also appears as a foolish comic figure with donkey’s ears, something that seems a later development. The earliest reference to Midas is in Tyrtaeus (fr. 12.6) in a rather negative tone as Tyrtaeus praises military prowess and remarks that unless one excels in war, other qualities mean nothing; he disqualifies people legendary for certain qualities —strength for Cyclopes, speed for Thracian king Boreas, beauty for Tithonus, wealth for Midas.

16The donkey’s ears first appear as a physical component in the representation (both visual and literary) around the second half of the fifth century bce (and remain part of his identity until late antiquity). One of the most persuasive explanations offered for the origin of this addition could be that the Silenus figure, Midas’s interlocutor in the wisdom seeking dialogue, was conflated with Midas, so the physical traits of a hybrid creature and his non-entirely human characteristics pass from one figure to the other. As Lynn E. Roller has noted, this feature was puzzling to antiquity as well, and several authors suggested aetia for this, the most prevalent being that this was punishment for Midas’ unwise decision in preferring the musical ability of the satyr Marsyas over that of the god Apollo.24 Associating big ears with better hearing, the mythographer Konon proposed that these long pointed to Midas being surrounded by spies or informers.25 Plato’s scholiast suggests that the ears addition is either because Midas used spies around him or because the donkey is an animal with very astute hearing sense, akoustikōtaton (ἀκουστικώτατον):

(408b, ter) Μίδου πλουσιώτεροι.
Μίδας Φρυγῶν βασιλεύς, ὃς δοκεῖ πλουσιώτατος γεγονέναι. τοῦτόν φασι καὶ ὄνου ὦτα ἔχειν, διὰ τὸ πρῶτον ὠτακουσταῖς αὐτὸν χρήσασθαι, παρόσον καὶ τὸ ζῷον ὁ ὄνος ἀκουστικώτατον.

Richer than Midas.
Midas, king of the Phrygians, who seems to have been very rich. They say that he had ears of a donkey, first of all because he used spies, as also because the animal, the donkey, hears very well.26

17The scholiast of Aristophanes further follows the tradition that some relay that Midas had not shown fairness towards Dionysus’s donkeys, so the god, angered at that, gave him donkey ears.27 Or that Midas having insulted Dionysus was transformed into donkey. The latter is not a very well known otherwise tradition and this transformation from Midas a wealthy king, to a donkey is a feature worthy of further scrutiny. Kings and donkeys are well-registered references in children’s games across the world.

18Athenaeus preserved a story about Midas’s ears having been pulled out of shape by a nobleman to indicate his great stupidity. This could possibly be an attempt to alienate a Phrygian figure, debase him and present him in comic colors. The reference to Midas as having donkey’s ears, also father of Lityerses survives in a fragment from Sositheus:

τούτῳ Κελαιναὶ πατρίς, ἀρχαία πόλις
Μίδου γέροντος, ὅστις ὦτ’ ἔχων ὄνου
ἤνασσε καὶ νοῦν φωτὸς εὐήθους ἄγαν.
οὗτος δ’ ἐκείνου παῖς παράπλαστος νόθος

Celainai was the homeland to this man, the ancient city of old Midas, who having the ears of a donkey and the mind of a very naïve man was reigning. He was a bastard son of this one.28

19In this most extant of the fragments by Sositheus, we have a satyr-drama that, although produced in the 3^rd c. bce seeks to restore the style of 5th c. bce satyr drama. In this one, the bucolic story of Daphnis is interwoven with that of the legendary reaper Lityerses. In this fragment, the purported illegitimate son of Midas, had taken Thaleia, Daphnis’ nymph, as his captive. He asked to compete in reaping with anyone who came near and, in the end, cut their heads with his sickle. Heracles appeared as a deus ex machina and reunited the bucolic couple. Midas is openly represented as a comic figure with donkey ears and not of the highest intelligence. These stories could be well compatible with the pot game (one can even say a pot is worn to cover the ears) as the pot brings attention to the head of the central figure posing as Midas. In archaeological evidence Midas was known for his wealth, the ears of the donkey and the story of him capturing the Silenus. On an attic red-figure stamnos kept in the British Museum (fig. 1; 450 BC),29 Midas is depicted enthroned, with protruding ass’s ears, in what to a Greek audience can be seen as an “orientalizing” pose but not with “oriental” clothes. Margaret C. Miller argues convincingly that Attic painters translate Achaemenid imperial iconography here possibly from a visual source.30 As she puts it31:

Athenian ambassadors may not have reached Iran proper, but the palace of Susa where they awaited the King was apparently filled with the same imperial iconographic programme of decoration. Certainly, Aristophanes’ parody of the report of an embassy to Susa presupposes acquaintance with diplomatic experience on the part of the Athenian populace (Acharnians, 61-125).

Fig. 1. Attic red-figure stamnos, H. 38.10 cm, attributed to the Midas Painter (c. 440 BCE). Reproduced with permission under the Creative Commons License.

20If Achaemenid visual sources are received within Attic painting, then the lore about the central figure is likely to be more dominant in ways that can explain the parodic element attached to it in a children’s game. Moreover, the presence of Midas in Attic pottery, on Athenian stage and the stylization of the figure as an eastern king all denote a familiarity with Midas in Greek theatrical and other oral narrative contexts.

21The famous account of how King Midas captured the satyr Silenus in order to make him reveal what is best for man is found in a fragment of Aristotle.32 The paradoxical reply: “never to be born, and, if born, to die as soon as possible”, explains why the passage is so regularly cited in studies of “pessimism” in ancient Greek culture. The other very well-known story of Midas is that of the golden touch. Likewise, the earliest known reference to Midas’s golden touch is found in the Politics of Aristotle when he writes that a man could be amply supplied with money and yet die of hunger, just as happened to Midas, for the insatiable desire of his prayer caused everything which was placed before him to become gold.33 The legendary wealth does not seem to be part of the early tradition, but that does not necessarily prove that it was not known earlier or that stories like that did not circulate more broadly orally; immense wealth that can still end in hunger is part of the associations with Midas as a figure in the Greek visual and oral narratives.

3. Games, Donkeys, and Pots. Storytelling Threads, Historiola, and Performance

22The cure to hunger is food, and cooking food is perhaps the most important activity of the day that ensures survival. For children to play with what is available around the household is a natural and expected activity and games, as many argue it prepares children for adulthood roles.34 There is practically no household that does not have as its basic apparatus some cooking tools, most importantly a pot. The notion of hunger and the pot as the source of a material remedy for hunger can also be part of the same associations that can link mythical lore and practice. Although it is impossible to argue with any certainty how storytelling about Midas and its connections with the hunger motif was shaped, the game as it stands offers the synchronicity of possible clues that can be linked to each other. Hunger is a condition that has deep connections with the very invention of gaming itself in the Greek tradition of ideologies about games. Palamedes who is thought to be the inventor of dice (kuboi) and boardgames with counters (pessoi), saved the Argive army while it was waiting in Aulis before the expedition to Troy. He began by both measuring with detail the food that was scanty and needed to be divided to the army. By inventing games, he gave also a remedy to the lack of work according to Sophocles’s fragment of Nauplius: “counters and dice, a pleasant cure to not working” (πεσσούς κύβους τε, τερπνόν ἀργίας ἂκος).35 Hunger can also be an aspect of insatiability, which is also a trait well connected with immense wealth and can arguably lie behind this type of lore.36

23Moreover, if we take further the Midas figure with its possible associations as the core of a historiola, namely an abbreviated reference of a greater story, then the children’s game offers, as historiolae do, the summarized reference reduced in a children’s rhyme.37 While this may be seemingly without much meaning beyond the act of play itself, it still affords us, despite the rudimentary references, the opportunity to delve further into ancient poetic traditions. Historiolae are often taken out of context and evoke earlier storytelling while retaining a special emotive and evocative force, which is precisely what enables their transmissibility. The story kernel, along with a visual reference such as the iconized king Midas and the donkey figure with the pot as a central material reference and game prop, makes this easily memorable and transmissible.

24The earliest reference to the donkey in Greek literature is in a simile in Homer’s Iliad, which describes a donkey defying the efforts of his young overseers to enjoy some grain he is not supposed to be eating; furthermore, donkeys are associated throughout with carnal pleasure and hunger for more.38 But Midas is only partly donkey-like with respect to his ears. The hybridity between the donkey and human form is one that has a long presence in Greek and Roman literature culminating in what must have been Lucian’s novels on Lucius or “the ass” which must have been hugely influential on Apuleius’s masterpiece of the Golden Ass or Metamorphoses.39 For the latter, among the many scholars who looked at the interpretative possibilities for Apuleius’ novel, Edward John Kenney has astutely suggested that the ass’s long ears symbolize its ability to listen without full understanding, something that points to those who lacking wisdom do listen without a deeper comprehension of what they hear.40 This offers a different layer of philosophical understanding, and, given that the Silenus figure is featured in philosophical texts (associated with Socrates in Plato),41 despite the absence of reference to the donkey’s ears in the game, we can see that the set of Midas representations can give us more clues about the processes of othering for the Phrygian king. A philosophical position on hearing and understanding, one of the most dominant themes in philosophy, can lurk behind the Midas usual representation on comic stage. Emily Gowers remarks that the figure of the ass, and the ass’s ears) is used in Latin Literature to make the same point: “everyone has ass’s ears until they see the light of philosophy”.42 Others following the tradition of animal metaphors for ethical uses see the donkey as a figure of servile behavior which is also linked with the curiosity of someone who listens but does not take in deeper what the (long) ears catch. If we regard Midas as someone who comes from far away and is interested in learning and seeks philosophical theoria then the caricature of donkey’s ears is nothing less than what Silvia Montiglio has called an unphilosophical theoria, one that emphasizes hearing, perhaps with the wrong interlocutor but not true knowledge.43 Midas has an epistemological problem, and his transformation to a comic figure further reveals that. If we take this further, then we can say that Midas framed as a figure who is not able to understand in depth can be equated with a child. The Midas game is a performance of childhood, and children associate themselves with a king, one though who can be seen as a child, not able to understand in more depth what he listens to.

25Midas is a king, and games often present kings or characters that appear as kings, often to be equated with the winners of some sort of ball games like the Phaininda.44 A source contemporary to Pollux, no other than the Greek work by Suetonius, On the Games of the Greeks, connects the king and donkey themes.45 In this passage, Suetonius gives us the different types of ball games, such as the aporraxis, also found in Pollux and Eustathius, which involves a basketball kind of hitting of the ball on the ground or the episkyros which is a rugby like game, where they hit the ball onto a kind of chipping of stone (latype, or Skyros), and then they start chasing each other. The Phaininda is a different kind of game where they show the ball and then send it off to others. Now for this game, those that win are called Kings, those that lose Donkeys:

Φαινίνδα δέ, ὅταν ἑτέρῳ τὴν σφαῖραν προδεικνύντες, ἑτέρῳ αὐτὴν ἐπιπέμπωσιν>. <Τῶν οὖν παιζόντων ταῦτα τοὺς μὲν νικῶντας βασιλεῖς ἐκάλουν καὶ ὅ τι ἂν προσέτασσον τοῖς ἄλλοις ὑπήκουον, τοὺς δ’ ἡττωμένους ὄνους>

Faininda is when they show to one the ball, but then send it off to another. They were calling kings those players who were winning in these, and would command the others who would obey in anything, but the ones who lost they called donkeys.46

26That this is not a new reference to winners and losers of games is something that goes back to at least Plato’s Theaetetus when Socrates uses a simile when discussing wisdom and knowledge:

ἆρ’ οὖν δὴ ἔχομεν λέγειν αὐτό; τί φατέ; τίς ἂν ἡμῶν πρῶτος εἴποι; ὁ δὲ ἁμαρτών, καὶ ὃς ἂν ἀεὶ ἁμαρτάνῃ, καθεδεῖται, ὥσπερ φασὶν οἱ παῖδες οἱ σφαιρίζοντες, ὄνος· ὃς δ’ ἂν περιγένηται ἀναμάρτητος, βασιλεύσει ἡμῶν καὶ ἐπιτάξει ὅτι ἂν βούληται ἀποκρίνεσθαι.

Socrates: … Can we answer this question? What do you say? Who can speak first? Whoever misses it shall sit down, as at a game of ball, and shall be the “donkey” as the boys say; he who will outdo his competitors in the game without missing, shall be our “king” and shall have the right to ask us any questions he may wish…47

27While any possible connection between this wisdom-seeking figure of Midas and the king behind Plato’s children’s games that assimilates those who can achieve knowledge and wisdom as kings is tenuous, nevertheless, the “Midas” game presents a hybrid of the king and donkey figures. As a game, the Midas game is very physical like the ball game referred to in Theaetetus. This donkey/king game presents a king who can ask whatever he likes, making the dialogic element quite dominant, as in a tag game.

28Unlike other games that only require human gestures, Pollux’s Midas game has the added reference to the pot. The child “acting” as “pot” (one can even imagine variations of the game with a player even wearing a pot) brings a reference that would be well known in people’s households. Both the lyrics and the performance highlight a certain materiality placing emphasis on not just any chytra but in particular the boiling pot. A simple association of the heat of the game and the heat of the pot and the notion of action and running going around makes this type of imagery one that can pass from household duties to a children’s game.

29The pot was one of the most common object props on the comic stage. As Martin Revermann notes, props on stage are condensed visual narratives, filled with symbolic connotations and stories to tell. With a view from semiotics and psychoanalysis, M. Revermann submits that props are detachable with a durable impressionability very different to that of words or gestures but are not easily decodable.48 They can be iconic and symbolic but function at the same time as mobile signs. More prolific in comedy than tragedy their use is often geared to audiences with a shorter attention span expecting laughter and action. Robert Tordoff furthermore writes that “comedy abounds and rejoices in these humble things” unlike tragedy, where we do not see them in the same way.49 In theater, there is a relationship between physical objects and plot, as objects can create sub-spaces and can give nuances of specific modality, such as creating ritual or metatheatrical references. In his study of props on dramatic stage, R. Tordoff has shown that when considering different categories, such as clothes, furniture, tools, etc., items that relate to food and drink and their containers are by far the most represented in Aristophanes’ Knights, but domestic items like that are sparser in late Aristophanes.50 Menander and the new comedy use props in similar terms, with domestic items being ubiquitous. But a game is not theater per se. Yet, in games, as in theater, everyday objects are stripped from their practical use to vehicle jokes, games and laughter, often with slapstick humor. If one were to reconstruct this game with one player “acting” like the “pot”, then the slapstick element can be further intensified as the child is almost mobilized as a prop. The play between a player standing as a common household item and the role of Midas as the one who has “the pot” becomes physical and remains imaginative at the same time.

30The pot is a standard reference in comedy and is often personalized. The pot is thought of as having handles or ears with complex references as a pot can be a type of a kiss when you also grab someone by the ears.

ΑΝΤΕΙΑ. Λαβοῦσα τῶν ὤτων φίλησον τὴν χύτραν.
Anteia. Grasp the ears and kiss the pot.

31While in this fragment by Eunicus, the only that survives for this comic poet, which we find in Pollux51, we do not know what is happening other than it probably refers to Anteia, a courtesan also mentioned by Demosthenes. Still the comic reference to the pot serves as a reminder about the ubiquity of pots on comic stage.

32Many references to the pot occur in Aristophanes.52 Epicharmus had a title Chytrai.53 The pot is also an object that is used for hitting, like the comic shield, which can break and empty all its contents as in the anecdote for Zeno the stoic:

ἐντεῦθεν ἤκουε τοῦ Κράτητος, ἄλλως μὲν εὔτονος πρὸς φιλοσοφίαν, αἰδήμων δὲ ὡς πρὸς τὴν Κυνικὴν ἀναισχυντίαν. ὅθεν ὁ Κράτης βουλόμενος αὐτὸν καὶ τοῦτο θεραπεῦσαι δίδωσι χύτραν φακῆς διὰ τοῦ Κεραμεικοῦ φέρειν. ἐπεὶ δὲ εἶδεν αὐτὸν αἰδούμενον καὶ παρακαλύπτοντα, παίσας τῇ βακτηρίᾳ κατάγνυσι τὴν χύτραν· φεύγοντος δὲ αὐτοῦ καὶ τῆς φακῆς κατὰ τῶν σκελῶν ῥεούσης, φησὶν ὁ Κράτης· „ τί φεύγεις, φοινικίδιον; οὐδὲν δεινὸν πέπονθας. “

There he was listening to Crates, otherwise easy to listen to philosophy, but embarrassed by the cynic shamelessness. Crates therefore wanting to remedy him, gives him a pot full of lentils to carry though the Kerameikos. When he saw him being embarrassed and covering himself, striking him with a cane, he breaks the pot. As he was leaving and the lentil soup was flowing down his limbs, Crates says: why are you fleeing, young Phoenician, you haven’t suffered anything.54

33The pot is also part of proverbial expressions such as that about labor in vain: “you decorate a pot, you are plucking hair from an egg” (Χύτραν ποικίλλεις, ὠὸν τίλλει).55 Pollux returns to the very topic of a pot in his tenth book when he brings up the question of pronunciation.56 Chytra (χύτρα) is often written as kythra (κύθρα) pronounced as kythra or zetraia (ionic is kythre, doric kuthra, from the verb χέω, root xFεω, indoeuropean *ghew).57 The fact that Pollux discusses the word χύτρα in its different contexts and meanings is again something that could be indicative of the cognitive processes behind the making (or editing) of a lexicographic work like the Onomasticon.

Προσαριθμητέον δὲ τούτοις καὶ τὰ τοῦ μαγείρου σκεύη, χύτρας χυτρίδια χυτρίδας—ζετραίαν δὲ τὴν χύτραν οἱ Θρᾷκες καλοῦσι—

One should add to these the pots of the cook, chytras, chytridia, chytridas, the Thracians call the Chytra zetraian.58

34Pots are present as prop objects and can be seen as the link between stage and everyday life. Children’s games touch on both real household space and the comic space as a children’s song and game is formed. The figure of Midas attached to a household object becomes in performance the receiver of children’s violence but also underlines the notion of childhood itself, latent in other sources. Midas has not grown up philosophically and becomes a comic figure, a child himself that the children celebrate as the game and its song is morphed from a complex intertextual world which itself carries the markers of the social nexus within which it operates.

Conclusion

35To weave all these threads together: the children in Pollux’s account perform a game that uses a character who is memorable and flexible as a figure in comic poetics. With the addition of donkey ears and the subtle references to Midas’s wealth conspicuous, children’s poetics associate the complex references around Midas with the most common item in any household: a cooking pot. The work theme is prevalent in children’s songs worldwide. The other girls’ tag game, the Tortoise-game, also presents the theme of weaving connecting women’s work and lament as the girls go around the figure playing the tortoise. While playing, children imitate adults’ roles and absorb lore and storytelling in a way that transforms rhymes into historiolae with abbreviated and often cryptic references to oral narratives in the adult world. In so doing, often in unconscious ways, they also show agency. They invent their own discourse, not simply translating, but adapting adults’ discourse. Children’s playful physical choreography mimic adult daily rituals and create their own world of play.59 From that perspective, what could be part of theater or less formalized performance can easily become play and a tag game, part of children’s adaptation of adult performance. But while in most cases we have a typified figure, here we have a specific historical reference to the Midas who became a legend and comical figure on stage. The association with notions of wealth, from wisdom degraded to stupidity, and wealth that yet is not free from hunger, can be seen as elements that channel less so philosophical elements (although arguably that happens too through this game) but navigate polarities and deconstruct symbols of wealth. Would children be familiar with Midas on the comic stage? If not directly, certainly in lore and circulating legends, enough to release creativity. This proliferation created what seems to have been a popular song that can become a way to philosophize innocently while also continuing practices of othering of the foreign element, even if that was through the projection of the defeated onto the figure of the mythical king of Phrygia. If Midas was presented as an unphilosophical figure, metamorphosed into a donkey, fit to celebrate childhood itself, then the game is a carrier of complex interactions of genres that absorb adult narratives and create childhood’s oral poetics to last in generations.