¹ Accession number 1885.653 (V. 224), height 24 cm; Beazley, ABV 435.2Google Scholar: description by Gardner, P., Catalogue of Greek Vases in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford 1893) 13Google Scholar, photograph in Enc. Arte Antica v 807Google Scholar, fig. 979. I am grateful to Mr Michael Vickers for having provided me with information, photographs, and permission to publish this vase.

I would like particularly to thank Professor John Boardman and Dr Dyfri Williams for their generous help and criticism of this paper at more than one stage, though they need not be construed to be in agreement with my conclusions. I would also like to thank Drs Alan Johnston, Ian McPhee, Catherine Hobey Hamsher and Jocelyn Penny Small and Mr Ian Jenkins for valuable discussions and suggestions. Drs A. J. N. W. Prag of the Manchester Museum, Jiři Frel of the J. Paul Getty Museum and Margaret Ellen Mayo of the Virginia Museum most generously provided the photographs of their recently acquired vases which appear as plates Vb, IVa and VIb respectively.

² Oxford 1965.124, CVA III (646)Google Scholar pl. 31, for example. For the iconography of the rape of Cassandra, see Davreux, J., La légende de la prophétesse Cassandre (Liége 1942)Google Scholar.

³ The following, chronologically arranged and here-after referred to by surname only, are recent general discussions or lists of the theme (which is, of course, also frequently treated in particular discussions of the objects on which it appears, e.g. auction catalogues and CVAs not included here). Literature before 1910 is given by Mommsen 139, n. 2.

Kossatz: Kossatz, A., Lex. Icon. Myth. Class. (1981)Google Scholar s.v. Achilleus: ix Achilleus und Aias beim Brettspiel, 96–103.

Moore: Moore, M. B., ‘Exekias and Telamonian Ajax’, AJA lxxxiv (1980) 417–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Mommsen: Mommsen, H., ‘Achill und Aias pflichtvergessen?’, Tainia: Festschr.… R. Hampe (Mainz 1980) 139–52Google Scholar.

Vermeule: Vermeule, E., Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley 1979) 80–3Google Scholar.

Boardman: Boardman, J., ‘Exekias’, AJA lxxxii (1978) 11–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Schefold (1978): Schefold, K., Götter- und Heldensagen der Griechen in der spätarchaischen Kunst (Munich 1978) 245–9Google Scholar.

Thompson: Thompson, D. L., ‘Exekias and the Brettspieler’, Arch. Class. xxvii (1976) 30–9Google Scholar.

Kemp-Lindemann: Kemp-Lindemann, D., Darstellungen des Achilleus in griechischer und römischer Kunst (Bern/Frankfurt 1975) 75–87Google Scholar.

Brommer (1974): Brommer, F., Denkmälerlisten zur griechischen Heldensage ii (Marburg 1974) 84–5Google Scholar.

Pilali-Papasteriou: Pilali-Papasteriou, A., ‘ΗΡΩΕΣΠΕΣΣΕΥΟΝΤΕΣ, Hellenika xxvii (1974) 12–38Google Scholar.

Brommer (1973): Brommer, F., Vasenlisten zur griechischen Heldensage³ (Marburg 1973) 334–9Google Scholar.

Beazley: Caskey, L. D. and Beazley, J. D., Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston iii (Boston 1963) 1–7Google Scholar.

Diehl: Diehl, E. E., ‘Eine attische Amphora mit brettspielenden Helden’, Berl. Mus. xii (1962) 32–9Google Scholar.

Kunze: Kunze, E., Archaische Schildbänder, Olymp. Forsch. ii (Berlin 1950) 142–4Google Scholar.

Chase: Chase, G. H., ‘Two Sixth Century Attic Vases’, Bull. MFABoston, xliv (1946) 45–50Google Scholar.

Schefold (1937): Schefold, K., ‘Statuen auf Vasenbildern’, JdI lii (1937) 30–3, 68–70Google Scholar.

Hauser: Hauser, F. in Furtwängler–Reichhold iii (Munich 1932) 66–7Google Scholar.

Schweitzer: Schweitzer, B., ‘Die Entwicklung der Bildform in der attischen Kunst von 540 bis 490’, JdI xliv (1929) 116–17Google Scholar.

Robert: Robert, C., Die griechische Heldensage iii (Berlin 1923) 1126–7Google Scholar.

Although the theme is treated principally by vase painters, it also appears on shield-bands (Kunze), Etruscan mirrors (Kemp–Lindmann, Brommer [1974]) and possibly also in a sculptural group (infra n. 21).

⁴ Vatican 344 (F 1 in Appendix I).

⁵ Fragments of an earlier version of the same theme are extant (F 4), well published recently by Mackay, E. Anne, ‘New Evidence on a Lost Work by Exekias’, JHS xcviii (1978) 161–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar and pl. IV, and discussed by Moore 419–21.

⁶ Most authorities who discuss the theme agree that Exekias is the earliest master whose surviving work shows Ajax and Achilles playing a game. Other opinions, however, have also been voiced: Diehl 37 and Pilali-Papasteriou 18 suggested that the plate in Berlin (B 17) was earlier, but see now Callipolitis-Feytmans, D., Les Plats Attiques à figures noires (Paris 1974) 159–60Google Scholar, who claims that the plate is a non-Attic clumsy imitation of Exekias' prototype; Kossatz 100 (no. 415) and 102 suggests that some of the shield-bands are earlier than Exekias, but see also Kunze 144, who disagrees. Several scholars, among them Schefold (1978) 68, (1937) 245, Mommsen 142, 147 n. 26, and Kossatz 98 (no. 398), 102 consider the cup in the Vatican (B 15 and B 16) to be independent and earlier than Exekias. Kemp-Lindemann 78 thinks the olpe in Rome (B 10) and the Corinthian olpe that is an imitation of an Attic prototype (B 11) are earlier than Exekias.

⁷ Ajax loses in the games in honour of Patroklos (Il. xxiii 700–39, 797–825, 826–45Google Scholar) and in the contest for the arms of Achilles (Od. xi 546–8Google Scholar; Little Iliad; Pind., Nem. vii 24–9Google Scholar, viii 23–7; Aeschylus' lost Hoplon Krisis; Ovid, Met. xiii 1 ff.Google Scholar; Hyginus, Fab. 107Google Scholar; Quintus of Smyrna Posthom. v 122 ffGoogle Scholar).

⁸ This point has also been observed by Mommsen 144. Brommer (1973) 334–9 lists 115 Attic black-figure examples, 14 Attic red-figure, and one Corinthian. Mommsen 141 has added 20 more vases to this list. Those I have been able to find adequate illustrations or descriptions of have been grouped in Appendix I according to the schemata discussed in this paper. In addition information on the following vases in Appendix I has been most generously supplied by Dr Dietrich von Bothmer: A 1, 3 bis, 7, 7 bis, 10, 11; B 2, 7, 11; C 2, 10, 12, 16, 19 bis; D 1, 5 bis, 11, 17, 30, 32 bis, 34, 35, 43; E 3 bis, 11; F 5, 8, 10, 12; and on the following vases by Professor Frank Brommer: B 2; C 24; D 1, 5, 18, 28 bis, 42 bis; E 11; F 13, 14. If, despite the abundant kindness of these two scholars, there are still mistakes in Appendix I, the author is at fault. I have not been able to categorize the following vases on Brommer's list (his numbers, ‘A’ unless otherwise specified):

amphora: 16

neck amphoras: 31, 32, 33

hydria: 46

lekythoi: 52, 59, 69, 70–2, 76–80, 88, 90

cup: 104

fragments: B 7 (RF), B 8 (RF)

and numbers 3 (amphora) and 10 (lekythos) on Mommsen's list.

⁹ Presumably the same artist in the Leagros group showed both heroes bareheaded in C 17 (ABV 362.35) and C 18 (ABV 362.30) but both helmeted in D 7 (ABV 362.29)—all showing Athena standing between the two heroes.

¹⁰ It is by no means sure that vase painters actually rejected Exekias' composition. The Vatican amphora (F 1), generally considered our earliest example of the theme, was exported to Vulci in antiquity and probably was not available for very long as a model in Athens. Of course another similar work may have been, for Exekias certainly treated the subject more than once. There are two reasons, however, why other artists might have found Exekias' example unappealing, one concerned with the subject, the other with the style. As Mommsen 144 points out, painters might have been more interested in stressing the equality of the two heroes in a more balanced schema and so avoided emphasizing one hero at the expense of the other as Exekias does. Also it is possible that Exekias' delicate asymmetry was not as pleasing to the ancients as it is to us, and for aesthetic reasons of their own painters made use of more obviously balanced elements. For another discussion of the theme in terms of symmetrical composition see Scheibler, I., Die symmetrische Bildform (Kallmünz 1960) 70–3Google Scholar.

¹¹ The only other apparent exception I have found (F 3)—a neck amphora in Tarquinia, RC 1627, CVA ii (1186) 37Google Scholar, 1—shows the two heroes seated, a normal-looking Athena between them and their shields behind them. A helmet rests on top of the shield of the player to the right; the head of the player to the left and that of Athena have been lost, but presumably since this player's helmet is not behind him, he must have been wearing it, like Exekias' Achilles and the left-hand player in the B.M. lekythos (F 2). Whether Athena was bareheaded as in the B.M. lekythos is impossible to say. I am grateful to Dr Catherine Hobey Hamsher for having called my attention to this anomalous vase.

¹² Athena bareheaded: C 9, 15, 19; D 19; F 2.

¹³ Athena apparently turning right: D 17, 23, 25?, 30, 32, 37, 42 bis, 44, 46.

¹⁴ Spear held approximately horizontally: C 7 (a pair of spears), 8, 9, 10, 11 (a pair of spears), 14, 17, 20, 21; D 3, 16, 17; sloping up to the left: C 4, 13, 19; D 21, 28 bis, 32, 37; F 2; vertically: D 13, 22, 33, 38; F 8.

¹⁵ Athena holding a shield: C 7, 23; D 32, 47; F 8.

¹⁶ On the crests of Athena's helmet see Williams, R. T. ‘The “Owls” and Hippias’, NC⁷ vi (1966) 9–13Google Scholar.

¹⁷ See Hartwig, P., Die griechischen Meisterschalen (Stuttgart/Berlin 1893) 275–6Google Scholar for an interpretation of the figure of Athena sometimes representing an image of the goddess and sometimes a living being, but with much the same meaning either way.

¹⁸ Athena in vigorous action on red-figured vases: D 47, 48; also on the black-figure vase C 21.

¹⁹ On this vase see in particular Schefold (1937) 30–3.

²⁰ The vases depicting two warriors playing a game are grouped according to these five categories (A–E) in Appendix I. Those that do not fit into any of these categories or are too fragmentary to be categorized are grouped under the letter F.

²¹ The fragment F 10 is, like the Louvre lekythos (E 10), suggestive of heroes as hoplitodromoi. The statuary fragments of kneeling youths in the Acropolis Museum (inv. nos 160.2 and 168) are sometimes suggested to be part of a game-playing group and would be of this type since they are apparently nude but for cloaks. No more than a foot and some drapery of one figure and a crouching leg and some drapery of the other is preserved. These fragments, though they could be combined to form a group resembling the game-playing heroes so popular on vases, could also be part of quite another subject. A fragmentary statue of Athena (inv. no. 142) is also sometimes associated with this group, though this association is not accepted by everyone. For a discussion of this group and bibliography, see Kossatz 100, no. 417; Thompson 32–9; Kemp-Lindemann 82–4; Brouskari, M. S., The Acropolis Museum (Athens 1974) 102–3Google Scholar, no. 161.

²² I am indebted to Mrs Valerie Small wood for this suggestion.

²³ Emphasis on symmetry perceptible in A 1, 9?; B 17, 18; E 5 (PLATE Vb). Symmetry always breaks down, in any case, in the representation of the upper parts of the figures since the right, playing hand is always distinguished from the left. This distinction between left and right hands (far and near) is preserved even when both men are making the same gesture. Thus B 18 is mirror-image in reverse. If the drawing in Kunze pl. 59 xxxiii γ is accurate, this depiction of the two warriors playing a game is very symmetrical (but for slight differences in the helmets) and very dull.

²⁴ Both heroes are usually shown bearded, but occasionally the hero on the left is distinguished by being depicted as beardless, cf. B 15; D 13, 47; E 4, 10. By implication he must be considered Achilles.

²⁵ Brommer (1973) 334–6.

²⁶ Brommer (1973) 336, nos 40 and 41 (D 9, C 17).

²⁷ Brommer (1973) 336–8. The new examples have confirmed rather than refuted the generalizations made here.

²⁸ I owe this photograph to the kindness of Dr D. von Bothmer who found an old negative in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has informed me (by letter) that the vase itself was sold in the 1920s and he does not know who acquired it. Some cups, e.g. D 44–6, E 6, 7, are as poorly drawn as the slapdash lekythoi; the London kyathos (E 8) and the Manchester skyphos (E 5, and PLATE Vb) are not much neater.

²⁹ For instance D 33 (Palermo 115) CVA coll.Mormino (I) III H (2226) 16, figs 8–10.

³⁰ Cahn, H. A., ‘Dokimasia’, RA (1973) 3 ff.Google Scholar

³¹ Brommer (1973) 338–9, esp. 339.

³² See von Bothmer, D., ‘Les vases de la collection Campana — un example de collaboration avec le Metropolitan Museum’, Rev. Louvre et Musées de France xxvii (1977) 216Google Scholar.

³³ This was observed by Beazley 2, n. 4.

³⁴ Musée Cinquantenaire CVA 3, III He (24) 11, 5a. No. R 328 (216a).

³⁵ Greifenhagen, A., Alte Zeichnungen nach unbekannten griechische Vasen (Munich 1976) 18 ff.Google Scholar, no. 9, fig. 17. I have also come across a kalpis in which the composition of type C (bare-headed heroes with Athena between them) has been transmuted into a feminine key. Two women are seated to the left and right of a table. A third stands between them, feet pointing right, head turned left, arms poised much like most of the Athenas in portrayals of Ajax and Achilles playing a game. The kalpis is illustrated in Ars Antiqua AG Auktion, Luzern, 2 Mai 1959Google Scholar, pl. 50, no. 110. A cup interior in Toronto (CVA pl. 40, fig. 4) showing Athena standing between seated figures of Dionysus and Poseidon is visually also very close to the compositions of type C.

³⁶ Ten vases have the names of one or both heroes inscribed upon them. Achilles on the left: A 7, C 10, C 21, D 11, F 1 (Exekias), F 11, F 12; Achilles on the right: A 5, B 6, F 10. Clearly Achilles is more often named on the left than the right. When one of the heroes is shown beardless (Achilles would be the younger one), he is shown on the left (see n. 24). In vases where Athena is present, she is almost invariably shown turning to the left, which one must assume is towards Achilles (for exceptions see n. 13). Nevertheless, though instances to the contrary are few, artists did not always feel obliged to put Achilles on the left. Moore 419 suggests that Exekias himself may have placed Ajax on the left on the amphora of which the fragments are in Leipzig (F 4), so that his ‘great authority’ might work either way. When Athena is present, it appears that artists thought of Achilles to the left much more consistently, but even here there are exceptions, as in F 10.

³⁷ Il. ii 768Google Scholar, viii 321, xvii 379; Od. xi 468, 529Google Scholar, xxiv 17.

³⁸ Il. ix 622–55Google Scholar.

³⁹ Il. xi 7–9Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Ibid. trans. A. T. Murray (Loeb).

⁴¹ This is the story according to the Aithiopis (Proclus, Chrest. x 2Google Scholar), Little Iliad (Schol. Ar. Equ. 1056), Apollodorus, Epit. v 4Google Scholar and Antisthenes, fr. 14 (Aias 2). The names of Ajax and Achilles are inscribed on the following vases on which a warrior is portrayed carrying his dead comrade out of battle: Florence 4209 (krater) François vase (twice); Vatican 317 (cup interior); Munich 1415 (J 380) (amphora). For further discussion of portrayals of Ajax carrying the body of Achilles, see my article (with Margot Loudon) ‘Two Trojan Themes: The Iconography of Ajax carrying the body of Achilles and of Aeneas carrying Anchises in Black-Figure Vase Painting’, AJA lxxxiv (1980) 25–40Google Scholar.

⁴² The tradition of Ajax's partial invulnerability was taken for granted by the time of Plato (Symp. 219e) and was essential for the development of Aeschylus' play about the suicide of Ajax, see Mette, H. J., Der verlorene Aischylos (Berlin 1963) 121–7Google Scholar and Die Fragmente der Tragödien des Aischylos (Berlin 1959) 105–6Google Scholar. The subject of the partial invulnerability of both Ajax and Achilles is thoroughly discussed in Berthold, O., Die Unverwundbarkeit in Sage und Aberglauben der Griechen (Giessen 1911) 6–26, 35–43Google Scholar. Further literature on the invulnerability of Ajax can be found in Shefton, B. B. ‘Agamemnon or Ajax?’, RA 1973 207–8Google Scholar, n. 4.

⁴³ Farnell, L. R., Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality (Oxford 1921) 309Google Scholar suggests that the connection may have gone back to Hesiod who deals with Aiakidai and Ajax. Pindar, in Isth. v 20 ff.Google Scholar and vi 19–30 takes the relationship for granted and Farnell believes that in such matters Pindar was a faithful follower of Hesiod. On the other hand, Pherekydes (who may have been about contemporary with Pindar) stated that Telamon was a friend, not a brother of Peleus (Apollod., Bibl. iii 12.6Google Scholar). It may be that Pherekydes' explicit rejection of the idea that Telamon was a son of Aeacus was stimulated by the recentness of the suggestion. Could it have arisen only about a generation before at the height of the popularity of representations of Ajax and Achilles playing a game? According to Huxley, G., Greek Epic Poetry from Eumelos to Panyassis (London 1969) 52–3Google Scholar, there was a tradition that Peleus and Telamon were brothers going back as far as the Alcmaeonis (see schol. Eur. Andr. 687).

⁴⁴ Robert, C., ‘Die Nekyia des Polygnot’, Sechszehntes Hallisches Winckelmannsprogram (Halle 1892) 57 n. 36Google Scholar suggested that a story which told of Ajax and Achilles on guard duty becoming so absorbed in a board game that they do not notice an enemy attack until Athena alerts them might have been part of an epic Palamedeia. This idea was very eagerly and widely accepted, e.g. by Schweitzer 117 n. 1, who assumes there was a poem that predated Exekias' work, which he believes is only an excerpt from a fuller representation which included Athena; Hauser 66–7 who follows Robert's suggestion; Schefold (1937) 30 (who is so completely committed to the story that he accuses the Hephaistos painter who decorated the late krater in Berlin, D 13, of having misunderstood or disregarded it!); Chase 49; Kunze 144 (who believes that the theme should be regarded as ‘Sagenbild’ rather than ‘Genrescene’); Diehl 34–6; Beazley 3; Pilali-Papasteriou 37; Kemp-Lindemann 85; Thompson 30–2; Moore 418; Kossatz 96.

⁴⁵ Boardman 21–4 suggests that topical events in Athens (Peisistratos' return in 546 BC as told by Hdt. i 62–3) may have given rise to the subject, though (p. 21) he doubts that Exekias invented the idea himself. Mommsen 151–2 suggests that the theme could have been largely invented and developed within the visual tradition (the point of view also espoused here) and given particular poignance in Athens through the association of Attic Ajax with the great Achilles. Lamer, , ‘Lusoria tabula’, RE xiii.2 (1927) 1994Google Scholar, is unusual among earlier writers in specifically refuting Robert's suggestion and claiming that an important painter could easily have envisioned the scene on his own without requiring any Palamedeia as a source of inspiration. A similar point is made by Snodgrass, A. M., ‘Poet and Painter in Eighth-Century Greece’, PCPS ccv (1979) 128Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ I am grateful to Dr J. P. Small for discussing this matter with me.

⁴⁷ See, e.g., Mackay, E. Anne, ‘The Return of the Dioskouroi: A Reinterpretation of the Scene on the Reverse of the Vatican Amphora of Exekias’, AJA lxxxiii (1979) 474–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who concluded that the scene is ‘an iconographic representation, couched in the appealing terms of what we today call “human interest”’ and criticises earlier interpretations by observing ‘The scene has become more complicated with the passage of time—each scholar “improves” upon the story of his predecessor in bardic style’. Such criticism and such conclusion might also, I think, be well applied to the other side of the vase.

⁴⁸ Mommsen 144.

⁴⁹ Mommsen 149 ff. and Schefold (1978) 245.

⁵⁰ D 12, 19.

⁵¹ E 6, 7, 8.

⁵² B 5, D 37, 40, 42, 42 bis, 44?, 45? Pilali-Papasteriou 37 suggests that when women are present, a setting within the Greek camp is indicated.

⁵³ D 32, 44?, 45?

⁵⁴ B 2, 9; C 17; D 7, 10, 19; E 9.

⁵⁵ For instance civilian men often appear interspersed with military ones, as on B 12–16, C 17, D 10. In the smudgier drawings it is not always clear whether the artist intended to represent heavily draped women or heavily draped men. A horseman appears on D 30 and what appear to be amazons (mounted women) on D 46.

⁵⁶ Beazley 2 n. 2 calls these the ‘long versions’ and enumerates them. They are D 47, 48, F 8 and B 18 (in Beazley's order).

⁵⁷ If one postulates that there was no literary source for the theme—not even a more or less informal one—the peculiarity of the krater in Berlin by the Hephaistos painter (D 13) which comes so long after the subject seems to have gone out of fashion is more easily explained. Schefold (1937) 30 remarked with some surprise that the Hephaistos painter seemed to have forgotten or neglected the point of the story, namely that Athena is present to rouse the heroes and remind them of their duty, not to crown the winner. If there were no story, the Hephaistos painter would have had nothing to forget or neglect, but like his predecessors would have been simply creating his own visual tale.

⁵⁸ D 46 and Brommer (1973) 337 nos 70, 71, 82.

⁵⁹ B 18, D 47, 48, F 8 show warriors in action but on other cases armed men flank the players with no hint of actual, or even impending, conflict, as on B 2,12,13, 14, 15, 16; C 17; D 7, 10, 19; E 9.

⁶⁰ Paus. x 31.1, and see Wüst, E. ‘Palamedes’ in RE xxxvi. 1 2506–7Google Scholar and Pearson, A. C.The Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge 1917) ii 133–Google Scholar (fr. 479).

⁶¹ See supra n. 21.

⁶² Birds prominent on: A 1, 6, 10; B 15, 16; D 12.

⁶³ Cf. Il. ii 299 ff.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Hamsher, C. Hobey, The Appearance and Iconographical Aspects of Palm Trees on Attic Black-Figured and Red-Figured Vases to 400 BC (Diss. London 1978) 442–4, 520–4Google Scholar argues for a location in Aulis if palm trees are prominent because of their association with Artemis. Game-playing heroes at Aulis—though the players are not Ajax and Achilles—appear in Euripides' Iphigeneia in Aulis. The chorus exclaims: ‘I saw the two Ajaxes sitting talking together … Protesilaos I saw and Palamedes … sitting on seats and taking pleasure in the complicated moves of the draught board’ (185–205). Euripides was also supposed to have intended to include a gaming scene in the Telephos but decided against it (Handley, E. W. and Rea, John, The Telephos of Euripides, BICS Suppl. v [1957] 32Google Scholar). The scholiast relates Ar. Ranae 1400 ‘Achilles has two aces and a four’ to this play or the Philoctetes, see Handley–Rea 32 and 47, and Boardman 21. Gaming is also mentioned in other tragedies, more likely not as an activity but rather in reference to Palamedes' invention, e.g. in the Nauplios of of Sophocles, see Pearson (n. 60) ii 85.

⁶⁵ Paus. x. 31.1: εἰ δὲ ἀπίδοις πάλιν ἐς τὸ ἄνω τῆς γραφῆς ἔστιν ἐφεξῆς τῷ ᾿Ακταίωνι Αἴας ὀ ἐκ Σαλαμῖνος , καὶ Παλαμήδης τε καὶ Θερσίτης κύβοις χρώμενοι παιδιᾷ, τοῦ Παλαμήδους τῷ εὐρήματι Αἴας δὲ ὁ ἕτερος ἐς αὐτοὺς ἁρᾷ παίζοντας. τούτῳ τῷ Αἴαντι τὸ χρῶμά ἐστιν οἷον ἄν ἀνδρὶ ναυαγῷ γένοιτο ἐπανθπύσης τῷ χρωτὶ ἔτι τῆς ἅλμης ἐς δὲ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐπίτηδες τοῦ ᾿Οδυσσέως τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἤγαγεν ὁ Πολύγνωτος.

⁶⁶ For another opinion and a different sort of reconstruction of the Polygnotan painting, see Robert (n. 44) 50–1 and pl. 1.

⁶⁷ Only D 13 is significantly after the second quarter of the fifth century BC. The better painters do not tackle the scene much after 475 BC. What may be a parallel instance is suggested by Birchall, A. and Corbett, P. E., Greek Gods and Heroes (London 1974) 14Google Scholar, ‘From the second quarter of the sixth century her ∣Athena's∣ birth was often represented at Athens and occasionally elsewhere. … The formula strikes us as naive; we do not know how the event was treated in the east pediment of the Parthenon but as it then disappeared from Greek art, the pediment may well have held a new if not revolutionary conception which could not be transferred to the minor arts; in other words, it killed the subject.' On the relationship of gaming and death, see Vermeule 80–2, 231–2.

⁶⁸ Murray, H. J. R., A History of Board Games other than Chess (Oxford 1952) 1Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Poleis may well go back to the fifth century BC (or before) as Pollux quotes an obscure reference to it in Cratinus, see Austin, R. G. ‘Greek Board Games’, Antiquity xiv (1940) 263Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Grandjouan, J.-O., L'Astragale et le Pari (Paris 1969) 26Google Scholar.

⁷¹ If Achilles' preserved throw of 2 on the cup fragment (F 10) can be assumed to be higher than Ajax's corresponding (but now lost) throw, then no more than a single die could have been used.

⁷² Beazley 2, Lamer (n. 46) 1995 shares this view.

⁷³ Murray (n. 68) 27, 31.

⁷⁴ Ibid. 31.

⁷⁵ Ibid. 28. Austin (n. 69) 267–71 feels that it is virtually impossible to discover much about pente grammai, though Beazley 2–4 is more sanguine.

⁷⁶ Murray (n. 68) 28 doubts that Pollux had any idea of what Sophocles meant by ‘five-lined boards and throws of the dice’. He interprets the five lines as a pentagram; Pollux as five lines on either side of the sacred line. On this point see also Beazley 3–4.

⁷⁷ Granjouan (n. 70) 69.

⁷⁸ Austin, R. G., ‘Roman Board Games II’, G&R iv (1935) 80Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ Murray (n. 68) 13.

⁸⁰ Lamer (n. 46) 1995 dismisses the idea of Mora on these grounds.

⁸¹ The enthralling nature of games was well appreciated by the Greeks; they told the story of how even the pangs of hunger could be forgotten by the starving Lydians who during a famine would eat one day and play games on the next (Hdt. i 93).