Basilinda
βασιλίνδα
Basilinda (βασιλίνδα), a children's game, wherein one is appointed by lot king, and has his playmates as soldiers or servants to obey him (Poll. 9.110; Hesych. sub voce). It was by an incident in connexion with this game that the parentage of Cyrus the Elder was discovered (Hdt. 1.114; Just. 1.5). By Suetonius (Suet. Nero 35) it is called ducatus et imperia ludere. We have evidence that in the game of ball called ἀπόρραξις (i. e. trying how often one can keep knocking a ball up against a wall, or against the ground), he who kept it up most times was called βασιλεύς, and he could give what orders he pleased to the defeated player, who was called ὄνος (cf. Plat. Theaet. 146 A; Hor. Ep. 1.1, 59; Grasberger, Erziehung und Unterricht, 1.53-55, 92).
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.