Note 510 — Chapter III · TOYS, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES.

The game of astragals, properly so called, was common to both sexes (Paus. vi. 24. 7), who saw in Elis one of the Graces, represented with an astragal in her hand, while her two companions held the one a rose, the other a branch of myrtle, symbolical of their relationship to Aphrodite. The poets sometimes transfer these sports of earth to the Olympian halls, where we find Eros and Ganymede playing with golden astragals—Cf. Apollon. Rhod. iii. 117. seq. Cf. Odyss. α. 107. Il. χ. 87. seq.