La royauté de l'enfant. À propos d'Héraclite et de pratiques ludiques enfantines en Grèce ancienne

In fragment 52 D.-K. of Heraclitus, the careful observation of a child who moves pawns serves as a metaphorical operator for thinking about the order and disorder of the world at the hands of a fragile but powerful king. To understand how a game could have this symbolic value, this article examines the written and iconographic sources which refer to the different dimensions of children’s play activities, with a dimension not limited to learning, but also divinatory, especially when they take place in a sanctuary.