Greek Board-Games

Abstract

The study of Greek board-games is almost wholly inconclusive, owing to the scanty and extremely imprecise evidence available. Difficulties would in any case be inevitable, since most games are better grasped in actual play than by studying a set of written rules; and here the technicalities are expressed in a foreign language and were sometimes not clear even to their users, who cheerfully omit what they do not understand, or take it for granted that the reader is familiar with the main details. Further, the games so described by our authorities had often been long obsolete. Some of the difficulties may be realized by trying to reconstruct a game of Ombre entirely from Pope’s Rape of the Lock, or a game of cricket from Dickens’ account of All Muggleton v. Dingley Dell (even with the help of Mr A. G. Macdonell’s searching critique of that famous match). Here is an example of a rather different kind, which well shows the pitfalls of unfamiliar teiminology; it is translated from K. Silex’s John Bull xu Hause, and is an attempt to explain cricket to Germans. ‘Two teams of II men oppose each other; two “wickets” are set [how ?] in the ground at a distance of 20 metres, being three wooden sticks [how high ?], over which two rods (Stäbe) are laid [how?]. The aim is to hit the wicket with a ball [how big?] or to knock off the rods with it. One side defends the wicket, the other attacks; the defenders post before each wicket [where ?] a “batsman” with a striker (Schläger): the other side opposes him with a “bowler” who tries to hit the wicket with the ball [how?]. Two men only of the defence are in actual play, the rest wait their turn’ … etc.