Battling on Boards: The Ancient Greek War Games of Ship-Battle (Naumachia) and City-State (Polis)

Abstract

Only two distinct board games (and their variants) are firmly attested among Greeks in the Classical period (fifth to fourth centuries bc). The first, eventually known as “Ship-Battle” (ναυμαχία), is first attested in the seventh century bc and was played (ordinarily) with ten counters and a die on a board with five parallel lines or a circle of ten spots. The second, known usually as “City-State” (πόλις), is first attested in the fifth century bc and was played with sixty counters (and possibly a die) on a board with a grid of lines. These two games were the first war games in the West (if not the world), preceding Chess by a millennium.