Giochi da ragazze. Alcune riflessioni storico-mediche sull’altalena e sull’esercizio con la palla nel mondo greco romano

The paper aims to propose a historical-medical interpretation of two play activities which, due to their link with the cultic dimension in one case and with the symbolic one on the other, provides us with the opportunity of a multidisciplinary approach. The particular connection between movement and female physiology, the support of medical literature and the relationship between medical tradition and myth contribute to defining more clearly the game of swing and ball as markers of a biological and socio-political transition from childhood to adolescence. From a methodological point of view, this approach testifies once again to the interdependence between myth, rite, medicine and the organization of social relations according to gender criteria consistent with the role assigned to women in the Greek and Roman world and male construction of their biological inferiority.