Acknowledgements
Enter the game
Part 1: Heroic games
Introduction. Achilles and Ajax at play: Inventing a canonical image
Chapter I. "Exekias made me and painted me"
Chapter II. The Pente grammai
Chapter III. Agon and aristeia
Chapter IV. Tyche's dice
Chapter V. Urban heroes
Chapter VI. Game or abacus?
Conclusion. Back to Palamedes
Part 2: Gymnastic games
Introduction. Athletics and play
Chapter I. Ball games
Chapter II. Riding games
Chapter III. Spinning tops and twirling objects
Chapter IV. Ganymede's hoop
Conclusion. Leaving toys behind
Part 3: Games of love and chance
Introduction. Under the gaze of Eros and Aphrodite
Chapter I. Playing with balls, apples, and wool balls
Chapter II. Ephedrismos
Chapter III. Spinning tops and knucklebones
Chapter IV. Swings and seesaws
Chapter V. Drawing lots with one's fingers
Conclusion. Paidia: Play is a woman
Part 4: Childhood at play
Introduction. Playing, 'acting like a child'
Chapter I. Festive childhood
Chapter II. Representing children at play
Chapter III. Playing at being grown up
Chapter IV. Playing with animals
Chapter V. Playing with rituals
Chapter VI. Imaginary children
Conclusion. A city united by playful children
Game over
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Illustrations
Indexes
For two centuries, from the middle of the 6th century to the end of the 4th century BCE, hundreds of scenes of play were depicted on Attic and South Italian vases. They bring to life warriors, children, girls and boys enjoying a large variety of ludic activities—boardgames, ball games, hoop games, spinning tops and swings. This book explores how the experience of play can shed new light on the dynamics of Archaic and Classical Greek society, its norms, values and imagination. Vase-painters offer us a different way of thinking about youth, love, life passages, competition, performance, with a particular relation to luck and risk.This journey through ludic images begins in the Archaic period, with the depiction of two soldiers, heavily armed, relaxing in war, demonstrating their complicity, wisdom and strategic skills by playing a boardgame. It ends with children's entertainment in a festive setting in the late 5th and early 4th centuries BCE. Throughout this period, vase-painters praise the physical beauty of young men training to be the best in the gymnasium and of girls competing or exercising their agency to propitiate the gods for a happy wedding.This lavishly illustrated volume is based on the research carried out in the ERC Advanced Grant project Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, supported by the European Research Council.
