Ancient Greek children played many games that were similar to modern games. They played with toys like clay animals, pull toys, yo-yos, and dolls. Popular games included hoop rolling, knucklebone games, ball games like football and versions of basketball, strategy games like checkers, as well as swinging, seesawing, and games involving shells or stones. Greek philosophers saw play as important for preparing children for adult roles, and art from the time depicts children enjoying various games.

1. Comenius Program 2010 - 2012
PLAYING IN ANCIENT
GREECE
Toys and games in ancient Greece

2. • Ancient Greek children played games strikingly similar to
many of the games children play today.
• Like many modern psychologists, Greek adults saw such
games as a valuable way to prepare children informally for
adult tasks and vocations.
• Plato, a classical Greek philosopher (428-348 B.C.), wrote:
“He who is good at anything as a man must practice that
thing from early childhood, in play as well as earnest, with
all the attendant circumstances of the action”.
• Various ancient works of art show children at play.
Also, archaeologists have recovered the remains of some
ancient Greek toys.

3. Ancient toys
Ancient Greek children
played with many toys
including:
• little clay animals
• horses on four
wheels that could be
pulled on a string
• yo-yo’s
• terra cotta dolls

4. Terra cotta dolls
The doll is one of the most diachronic and widespread games in
all cultures. Ancient Greece had a brilliant legacy in dolls, the
presence of which we detect continuously in all the historical
periods, where various types of dolls with various names made
their appearance: idols, plangôns, nymphs, korês, korokosmion
or koryllia, dagudes, glynes and nevrospaston.

5. Young people play yo-yo’s

6. Aiora
An age-old game that in ancient Greece we find with the name aiora
in the Byzantium a hanging aiora, and today as a swing.
It was mainly played with by girls and small boys. It was made with a
single or many ropes, the two utmost ends of which were tied to a
tree branch, a horizontal beam, from the transom of a door or from
wherever possible, thus shaping a U.

7. Krikilasia
Games involving rolling wooden
hoops, quite similar to those children
play today, were also popular with
ancient Greek children. A child with a
hoop appears in the Hood’s
exhibition on an oinochoe entitled
Serving Boy Holding Tray and Hoop
There are abundant literary
references to the popularity of hoop
bowling: in Euripides’
Medea, Medea’s young sons first
appear when “fresh from their hoop
bowling.” Similarly, a wealthy
magistrate who endowed a
gymnasium in Prirene encouraged
the young men who frequented it to
roll hoops.

8. Astragali
The “αςτράγαλοι”
(knucklebones), were the items
with which the game of
“αςτραγαλιςμόσ” [astragalismos]
was played, as well as several
games of dexterity and games of
chance, and they were also used
as a means to predict the future
and to provide divinations. The
Ancient Greeks also considered
them protective items and many
times they became pieces of
pendants, together with other
protective items (amuletum).
Today the “αςτράγαλοι” are
known to us as “κότςια”, a name
that originates from Byzantine
terminology. We do not know the
exact time the game of
“αςτραγαλιςμόσ” first
appeared, and naturally the
“αςτράγαλοι”.

9. Astragalismos
knucklebone playing in
ancient Greek art. Children
typically played this
game, often regarded as the
ancestor of modern jacks
games, with the tarsal bones
of sheep or goats.
There were numerous
variations on the games of
knucklebones

10. Athirma
The amaxis was a toy-object
that kept the same name
even during the Byzantium.
Today we know it as a buggy
or wheelbarrow. It was a
small child’s toy, mainly for
boys who were a maximum
of 6-8 years old. In various
vessels, roughly-made
buggies are
portrayed, effigies of small
chariots with two
tires, usually drawn by a
child carrying in this a small
animal.

11. Petavron
The game that we know
called Aiora h Vrachionios is a
swing game different from the
hammock. No ropes were
used, but a large board that
the ancient Greeks called
“petavron”. At the same time
the Aiora h Vrachionios is also
a gymnastics apparatus. The
game enjoyed a wide
distribution both in the Greek
world and in the Roman; it
was also played in the
Byzantium under the same
name. Today it is called a see-
saw.

12. Ephedrismos
Ephedrismos was a popular game whose name is
derived from the Greek word for “sit upon.” Two
players place a stone upright on the ground and
throw other stones at it from a distance. The
player who fails to knock over the upright stone
then carries the other player on his back while
the winner’s hands cover his eyes. The pair runs
around in this fashion until the losing player
touches the stone.

13. Ephedrismos

14. Dielkystinda, another one type of team game

15. Ostrakinda
Greek children also loved to play a
game called ostrakinda.
The name of the game is derived from
that of the shell that is used during
play. Greek children would take a shell
and smear one side black. They
referred to this side as “night,” while
the blank side was “day.” The children
then drew a line, divided into two
teams, and decided which team was
night and which day. One player would
toss the shell, and the side whose
color came up chased the other team.
Anyone caught was forced to carry his
pursuer on his back.
Variations of ostrakinda are still played
in Europe. English children play a
version called “Crusts and Crumbs,”
French children one called “Le Jour et
La Nuit,” and Austrian children a game
called “Schwarz-Weiss.”

17. Pentalitha
The renowned game, even
known today by the names of
“πεντόβολα” [pentovola] (five
throws), “πετράβολα”
[petravola] (stone
throws), “πεντεκούκια”
[pentekukia] (five
beans), “πετράδια” [petradia]
(stones) and others, was
known to the Greeks from
very ancient times. In
“πεντάλιθα” players used five
small, smooth stones, five
knucklebones or five small
and flat pieces of shell.

18. Other games similar to many of the games children play today

21. Ball games
Ancient Greek played
numerous types of
ball games

22. Ancient Greek football player balancing the ball

23. Episkyros - Arpastron
Arpaston was a ball game that, in all
probability got its name from
arpasti, the ball with which it was
played. This ball was of a small size
and could be easily seized. It was
played as follows: A group of children
or adolescents threw the ball up high
and while it fell, the player had to
catch it in the air and throw it up high
again.
The opponents pushed one
another, ran, feigned, jumped all
together in order to grab the ball, tired
themselves out and raised clouds of
dust. Because of the violence that
characterized the game, it may have
belonged to “sferomachia”, a category
of games that presupposed bodily
strength and the ability to wrestle. In
our times it is still played with the
same name, arpaston or arpasti.

24. Trigono
An interesting ball game
established in ancient Greece at
around 500 B.C., without us
knowing any other details about
the game or who devised it. It is
in any case a fact that all games
with a top or ball were popular.
This particular game was played
with three balls, that were called
trigones and which were
alternately thrown by the
player, the trigonist, in the air
forming a triangle.
One was supposed to be in
his/her hand and the other two in
the air. The game could be played
both by one player as well as
more, therefore there was also
competition

25. The three players that
sit on the shoulders of
the other three
appear to be looking
for something with
outstretched hands
from someone older
who, supported on a
walking stick, is
prepared to throw a
ball towards them.

26. Ball game like hockey
It is a type of ball game where the players attempt with curved
sticks to draw the ball towards them, movements that remind
us a lot of modern hockey, a fact that would have to direct
research around hockey and how it was invented.

27. A ball game like
basketball
Here two young boys are
shown playing passé-
boule, a game similar to
modern basketball. The
object was to toss the ball
through a hole in an
upright board stuck in the
ground. Four other ancient
Greek vases, all dating
from the latter half of the
fifth century, show
versions of this popular
game.

28. Strategy games
The Ancient Greeks also
played games that did not
involve much physical
activity also, such as
marbles, dice, checkers
and knucklebones. Below
is a famous vase from the
Vatican museum depicting
Achilles and Aias playing
'Petteia' checkers.

29. “Solon, you Greeks always remain
children. There has never been an old
Greek. You heart because your heart
does not remember any of the old beliefs
of tradition nor the age-old
knowledge…”.
Plato (great Greek philosopher, 428 – 348 B. C.)
Comenius Program 2010 - 2012 Zoe Takavakoglou
2nd junior high school Teacher of ancient Greek literature
Evosmos Thessaloniki
Greece