Crotalum
![Illustration taken from the drawing of an ancient marble in Spon's Miscellanea,[1] representing one of the crotalistriae performing.](/uploads/202501/07/Crotalum,_Dictionary_of_Greek_and_Roman_Antiquities4629.gif)
In classical antiquity, a crotalum (Ancient Greek: κρόταλον krotalon) was a kind of clapper or castanet used in religious dances by groups in ancient Greece and elsewhere, including the Korybantes.
The term has been erroneously supposed by some writers to be the same with the sistrum. These mistakes are refuted at length by Friedrich Adolph Lampe (1683-1729) in De cymbalis veterum. From the Suda and the Scholiast on Aristophanes (Nubes, 260), it appears to have been a split reed or cane, which clattered when shaken with the hand. According to Eustathius (Il. XI.160), it was made of shell and brass, as well as wood. Clement of Alexandria attributes the instruments invention to the Sicilians, and forbids the use thereof to the Christians, because of the motions and gestures accompanying the practice.