Polis (board game)

[1] The earliest known reference to polis comes from Cratinos, an Athenian comedic poet, in his comedy Drapetides ("Female Runaways"), from 443/442 BC.

[3] In Ancient Greek mythology and painted pottery, Achilles and Ajax are sometimes shown as playing a game (whose invention has been credited to Palamedes).

[5] Many aspects of the game are unknown, such as the shape of the board, its initial setup, or how the pieces moved.

The pieces, which came in two colors and probably numbered thirty (per player, so sixty total - this claim however has been disputed[3]), were called "dogs".

[2] It is unclear whether the game involved dice rolling (such a claim was made by Eustathius of Thessalonica but it could have been a mistake).

[3] A plausible but speculative reconstruction of the game rules were suggested by Max Nelson in 2020.

He nonetheless suggested that thematically the game was less of a depiction of military conflict (wars between Greek city-states) and more of a celebration of the founding of the city state of Athens, with which he believes it was mainly associated.