Nowadays we buy all sorts of toys for our children, starting them off with the simplest ones: balls, pull-toys, rattles and such. When Lucas was a baby boy, his favorite was a cushy soft ball with a rattles inside–“Shakey Shakey”–he always like to squeeze it tight and shake it. Then there was his spinning top, the kind you pump down on for it to spin. Lots of twirling colors delighted him. Then there was his bouncer, with it’s assortment of colorful gizmos for him to touch, hear and chew on. And at 12, he still sleeps with his oldest and dearest friends… his plush “Cushy Bear” and “Moo-Cow”. Kids were always kids… even in the ancient world parents gave their kids toys…
First of all, the Romans had something for baby… the Crepundia. This was a string or leather lace strung with small toys and ornaments in the form of flowers, swords, axes and other tools, and lucky charm shapes, like a half moon. The resulting necklace was hung around a baby’s neck to amuse him with their shapes, colors and rattling sounds.
Of course, many first toys used by plebeian children were made from things found in nature: rocks, sticks, clay, acorns, pine cones, or vines or husks made into primitive dolls. Sometimes childhood fun is as simple as that. A game called Battledore, resembling badminton, used flat paddles hitting pine cones back and forth, or cork with feathers stuck into them used as the shuttlecocks. Pebbles could become a game with the dirt becoming a game board or a place to draw with a pointy stick.
And of course there were dolls… made from fabric and stuffing, carved from wood or made from terracotta. Modern parents would have a hard time picturing a child cuddling up to a terracotta dolly. I wonder how many must have been broken in a tantrum during the Terribili Due (the Terrible Twos).
For the toddlers, there were pull toys made of terracotta or wood in all sorts of animal shapes. Some pull toys were horses and chariots… one can imagine a young boy playing the part of the latest charioteer champion. As a boy got older, he might build a little cart to hitch a mouse to. As a kid, I remember putting my hamster behind the wheel of a remote control Model-T Ford model that I had… I loved watching him with his little paws on the steering wheel, going round and round. He seemed to like it, too.
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