Figure 1.-- This is the relatively short part of a lengthy relief pannel showing Roman children playing. Again the boys and girls are separated. The girls here may be playing Micatio. We are not sure what the boys are playing, but it seems to be a competion in which hey won what looks like large nut pods. The boys are clearly more unruly and less well behaved than the girls. Click on the image to see the longer boy part of the pannel. Notice that mot of the children are not barefoot, but seem to be wearing sandals. This is a marble panel from a Roman sarcophagus, 3rd century AD. It was from the Vigna Emendola on the Via Appia.

References to games and play have been found in a range of Roman (Latin) texts. Popular activities included flying kites, playing with balls, and rolling metal hoops that chimed like bells. Horace is a good source on Roman family life and children and he provides some information on games. He describes children riding hobby-horses, building playhouses, and making tiny whelled carts. Boys played war and practiced with wooden swords. They might play the Trojan war or the battles to defeat Hanibal and destroy Carthage. Some of the games were standards still played today, some of the oldest games still played by modern people. There was a tug-of-war game called Troy. A popular hand game was was Micatio. The modern version is Morra and is still popular in Italy. There was a game rather like jacks played with nucklebones. The imagery we have found suggests a game rather like bowls. But unless there is some mention in Roman texts, it is often difficult to understand just what is being portrayed in the mosacics, paintings, and sculptures.

Created: 1:21 AM 2/27/2017
Last updated: 1:21 AM 2/27/2017