Polis (board game)
Polis (Greek: πόλις) is one of the earliest know strategy games. It resembles checkers. Its name appears in the Ancient Greek literature around 450 BCE.[1][2]
History
Like with many ancient games, not much is known about it, including who, where and when invented it.[3] The earliest known reference to polis comes from Cratinos, an Athenian comic poet, in his comedy Drapetides (“Female Runaways”), from 443/442 BCE.[1] The game was praised by Plato and Polybius, and possibly Philostratus, "as a game of strategy requiring great tactical skill". It was also likely referred to by Aristotle and Socrates.[3][4][5]
In Ancient Greek mythology and art, Achilles and Ajax are sometimes shown as playing a game (whose invention has been credited to Palamedes)[6]; the game has been sometimes identified as polis[7] also at other times, as five lines (a dice game).[8]
Rules
The rules of the game are not fully known.[5] Some were described by Julius Pollux in his Onomasticon. The board, like the game, was called polis, and featured a grid. The pieces, which came in two colors and numbered thirty (per player, so sixty total), were called "dogs". There was no difference between pieces.[1][3] It was a symmetrical game of elimination for two players, each playing with pieces of their color. It had no random elements, and the pieces moved in all directions on a square board.[1] The game can be seen as resembling checkers but with a different mode of capture (pieces were captured by enclosure from two sides).[1][3][8] The strategy involved maintaining formation and avoiding having one's pieces isolated.[3]
The game may be similar to Ancient Roman game of ludus latrunculorum.[7][8]
Significance
The game was seen as having educational value in learning how to learn and follow a set of rules.[3] Leslie Kurke argued that the game had a cultural significance: " playing the board game polis might help form a Greek boy as a citizen of the city".[3] Learning to play polis is mentioned as part of a philosophical education in works of Ancient Greek philosophers.[5]
Thierry Depaulis recognized the game as one of the oldest known strategy games (alongside Chinese game of go, which is mentioned by Chinese sources that also date to similar era as the oldest mentions of polis and which unlike polis remained popular to this day). Depaulis argued that invention of such games was one of the signs of the Axial Age (emergence of more complex thinking patterns, such as philosophy), as people moved from playing pure games of chance (such as dice games and race games) to strategy games.[1][2]
A game board for polis was found in Rhamnous.[2]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Depaulis, Thierry (2021-04-13). "A Timeline of Mind Games, with Some Correlations". BOARD GAME STUDIES COLLOQUIUM- The Evolutions of Board Games, Apr 2021, Paris, France.
- ^ a b c Depaulis, Thierry (2020-10-01). "Board Games Before Ur?". Board Game Studies Journal. 14 (1): 127–144. doi:10.2478/bgs-2020-0007. ISSN 2183-3311.
- ^ a b c d e f g Kurke, Leslie (July 1999). "Ancient Greek Board Games and How to Play Them". Classical Philology. 94 (3): 247–267. doi:10.1086/449440. ISSN 0009-837X.
- ^ O'Sullivan, Daniel E. (2012-07-30). Chess in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: A Fundamental Thought Paradigm of the Premodern World. Walter de Gruyter. p. 66. ISBN 978-3-11-028881-0.
- ^ a b c Bakewell, Geoff (2022-04-01). "Plato Plays Polis". Board Game Studies Journal. 16 (1): 413–430. doi:10.2478/bgs-2022-0014.
- ^ Mariscal, Lucía Romero (2011). "Ajax and Achilles Playing a Board Game: Revisited from the Literary Tradition". The Classical Quarterly. 61 (2): 394–401. ISSN 0009-8388.
- ^ a b Gagarin, Michael (2010). The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Greece and Rome. - Vol. 1 - 7. Oxford University Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-19-517072-6.
- ^ a b c Schädler, Ulrich (2013-01-30). "Games, Greek and Roman". In Bagnall, Roger S.; Brodersen, Kai; Champion, Craige B.; Erskine, Andrew; Huebner, Sabine R. (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (1 ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah22285. ISBN 978-1-4051-7935-5.