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

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.