The art of juggling has existed in various cultures throughout history. The first depictions were found in ancient Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome, as well as medieval and modern societies.
Ancient Egypt
The earliest record of toss juggling is a painting dated between 1994–1781 BC, during the Middle Kingdom period of Ancient Egypt, on the wall of Tomb 15 in Egypt's Beni Hasan cemetery complex. This tomb belonged to Baqet III, a provincial governor of Menat-Khufu (present day Minya) during the later years of the Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt., William C. Hayes, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol 1, part 2, 1971 (2008), Cambridge University Press, , p. 471. It depicts female dancers and acrobats juggling up to three balls, and one of the girls juggling with her arms crossed.
In another Beni Hasan painting, four girls are playing a juggling game in which two girls throw and catch a ball while being carried on the backs of the others. Arthur Watson, in his 1907 article for The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist, suggests that if a player dropped the ball in this game, it became that player's turn to become the bearer., Watson, Arthur. "Jugglers." The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist. Volume 13, January 1907.
Brooklyn Museum associate curator Dr. Robert Bianchi suggests that the appearance of jugglers in the Beni Hassan tomb may be "an analogy between balls and circular mirrors, as round things were used to represent solar objects, birth and death.", Gillen, Billy. "Remember the Force, Hassan!" Juggler's World, Volume 38 Issue 2, Summer 1986.
Ancient China
References to jugglers in Chinese literature from the Spring and Autumn period indicate that toss juggling was a well-developed form of ancient Chinese art.
Xiong Yiliao (), was a Chu warrior who fought under King Zhuang of Chu (ruled 613–591 BC) during the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. Ancient Chinese annals state that he practiced nòngwán, "throwing multiple objects up and down without dropping". Zdic.net: 弄丸 During a battle in about 603 BC between the states of Chu and Song, Xiong Yiliao stepped out between the armies and juggled nine balls, which so amazed the Song troops that all five hundred of them turned and fled, allowing the Chu army to win a complete victory. Chinese Acrobatics Through the Ages, by Fu Qifeng As Xu Wugui recounts in Chapter 24 of the Zhuangzi, "Yiliao of Shinan juggled balls, and the conflict between the two states was ended." Zhuangzi, translated by James Legge, Xu Wu-gui, verse 10 All our Yesterdays: Juggle Magazine, Spring 1987, pg 42
Lanzi (), another juggler from the Spring and Autumn period who is mentioned in the Chinese annals, lived during the reign of Duke Yuan of Song (531–517 BC)., Song history listing dates for Duke Yuan Roughly translated, Chapter 8 of the Liezi, an ancient collection of Daoist sayings, reads as follows: In the State of Song there lived a man named Lanzi, who sought favor from Lord Yuan of Song for his skills. Lord Yuan of Song summoned him, and he performed on stilts that were twice as long as his body and attached to his legs. He walked and ran on them, and he also juggled seven swords, alternately throwing them and always keeping five swords in the air. Lord Yuan was amazed, and at once he granted Lanzi gold and silk. Liezi: Shuofu (列子說符), Chapter 8, paragraph 15Independent translation adapted from Zhang, Z. "Liezi Zhu (列子注)." Shijiazhuang: Hebei Renmin Chubanshe, 1986.
The passage states that Lanzi juggled the jian, a straight, double-edged sword which was used during the Spring and Autumn period. According to Jian Zhao in The Early Warrior and the Birth of the Xia, Lanzi was a general term for itinerant entertainers in pre-Qin and Han times. Jian Zhao, The Early Warrior and the Birth of the Xia, p. 39
Ancient Greece
Guhl and Koner, in The Life of the Greeks and Romans, describe the jugglers of ancient Greece: Jugglers of both sexes, either single or in gangs, were common all over Greece, putting up their booths, as Xenophon says, wherever money and silly people could be found. These frequently amused the guests at drinking-feasts with their tricks. The reputation of this class of people was anything but above suspicion, as is proved by the verse of Manetho ("Apotheles," iv., 276), in which they are described as the "birds of the country, the foulest brood of the city." Male and female jugglers jumped forward and backward over swords or tables; girls threw up and caught again a number of balls or hoops to the accompaniment of a musical instrument; others displayed an astounding skill with their feet and toes while standing on their hands., Guhl, Ernst Karl, and Koner, Wilhelm David. The Life of the Greeks and Romans: Described from Antique Monuments 1896, pg 270-271.
Juggling, acrobatics, and other games of skill appear frequently in Greek and Etruscan tomb reliefs, coins, and vases. A terracotta statuette from Hellenistic Thebes shows a man balancing balls on his knee and head., Masseglia, Jane. Body Language in Hellenistic Art and Society. Oxford University Press, 2015. Fig. 4.8, pg 171. Another example, a vase from Nola in the British Museum dating to 430 BC, shows a seated woman juggling two balls.
In his Symposium, set in 421 BC, the Greek historian Xenophon describes the appearance of a dancing girl at a dinner presided over by Socrates. Xenophon writes: And at the instant her fellow with the flute commenced a tune to keep her company, whilst someone posted at her side kept handing her the hoops till she had twelve in all. With these in her hands she fell to dancing, and the while she danced she flung the hoops into the air—overhead she sent them twirling—judging the height they must be thrown to catch them as they fell in perfect time., Xenophon, Symposium, Chapter II, translated by H. G. Dakyns.
Roman Empire
Many archaeological depictions of juggling in ancient Rome have been discovered. A monument with an inscription to Septumia Spica in the collection of the Museum of Roman Civilization depicts two relief carvings of a man toss juggling five balls while manipulating two more with his feet., Lombardia Beni Culturali, Monumento di Settimia Spica A similar relief carving in Maffei's Museum Veronense of a consul giving the signal for the circus games to begin includes a detail showing a boy toss juggling five balls.
In addition to images depicting juggling, several Roman writers mention jugglers. For example, Marcus Manilius described jugglers in an astrological calendar, writing that a juggler's "quick hands supplied a constant stream of balls to his feet with which he played and ball after ball poured over the limbs of his body."
A second century AD epitaph honors a juggler named Ursus. (Note: Although many juggling history sources refer to this man as Ursus Togatus, the word togatus in this case merely indicates that Ursus was a Roman citizen who could wear a toga.) As opposed to the "pilarii" (toss jugglers), Ursus was a "pilecrepus," apparently performing body bounces and catches with a single ball. His inscription reads: Ursus, the first Roman citizen to play properly with a glass ball with my players, to the great clamoring of the approving crowd in the baths of Trojan, Agrippa and Titus and especially in the baths of Nero., CIL Vol. 6, Inscription 9797, lines 1-6, translated in C. McClellan, Murray. "To Play Properly With A Glass Ball" Expedition Magazine 27.2 August 1985.
Archaeologist Murray McClellan describes a millefiori glass ball on display at the Penn Museum which was probably used in a juggling game called trigon, and it may have been the same game described in the Ursus inscription., McClellan, Murray. ""To Play Properly With A Glass Ball"" Expedition Magazine. Penn Museum, August 1985. Although the rules of trigon are not fully understood, it appears to have involved three players posted at the corners of a triangle throwing multiple balls back and forth as fast as possible, catching them with one hand and tossing them back with the other., McDaniel, "Some Passages concerning Ball-Games"
Quintilian, in his Institutes of Oratory, draws a parallel between the skill of an orator who scans ahead in his reading to that of a juggler, writing: Hence the possibility of those wonderful tricks of performers on the stage with balls and of other jugglers, whose dexterity is such that one might suppose the things which they throw from them to return into their hands of their own accord, and to fly whithersoever they are commanded to go., Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Book 10, Chapter 7.
Sidonius Apollinaris, a Roman officer leading a legion in the French province of Niemen, wrote in his letters that he enjoyed juggling three or four balls as a hobby for his own satisfaction and to entertain his companions in the legions.
The Roman poet Martial describes a juggler named Agathinus who performed a unique shield manipulation routine: The skill of Agathinus, the master juggler, is overwhelming. With swift limbs he hurls the shield up in the air and catches it on his foot, on his back, on his head and on his fingertips, although the stage is slippery from sprinkles of perfume and the wind blows hard; it seems as though he is trying to avoid the shield, which is seeking his body of its own accord. To keep the shield in constant motion is child's play for Agathinus; to drop it would take practice., Martial. Epigrams, Book 9, No 38. Translated by Christer Henriksén, A Commentary on Martial
The Tractate Sukkah of the Talmud says that Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel (10 BC to 70 AD) could "take eight fire torches and throw them in the air and catch one and throw one and they did not touch one another.", Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 53a. Another mention of torch juggling from around the third century AD appears in the letters of Alciphron, where an incident is described involving a woman whose husband "was attached to the Ionian lass who tosses balls and juggles torches.", Aliciphron, Letters of Parasites, Letter 36. Translated by A. R. Benner, F. H. Fobes. Loeb Classical Library 383. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949.
An ancient mention of knife juggling comes from the early Church father Chrysostom, who in Antioch around 450 AD witnessed jugglers "tossing up knives in rapid succession into the air and catching them by the handle.", Christopher Wordsworth, A Church History, pg 132.
Medieval Europe In the Middle Ages juggling was one of many skills performed by entertainers and buffoons. Representations of juggling in the Middle Ages may be found in illuminated manuscripts in the British Museum. One manuscript (Cotton MS. Tib. C. vi, folio 30 v.Digitized image, British Library), from an eleventh-century book on the life of Christ, shows an attendant of King David juggling three balls with his right hand and three knives with his left., Fig. 8, pg 9 of Watson, Arthur. "Jugglers." The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist. Volume 13, January 1907. William the Conqueror's minstrel Taillefer is recorded as performing a simple juggling trick with his sword at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, throwing and catching it, and then killing an English soldier.
The Boke of Saint Albans, published in England in 1486, mentions a "Neverthriving of Jugglers" as part of a list of collective nouns.Boke of Saint Albans, pg 115, digitized image
Legends and epic sagas from medieval folklore mention juggling. The Irish hero Cuchulainn is described "keeping nine apples, and his shield, and his sword in the air, that none of them fell to the ground.", Cuchulain of Muirthemme: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster, translated by Lady Augusta Gregory, 1902. Similarly, in The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel, a juggler named Tulchinne is described with "nine swords in his hand, and nine silvern shields, and nine apples of gold.", Epic and Saga: The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel. Charles W Eliot, 1910.