Episkyros

Episkyros was an ancient Greek team ball game in which players tried to throw or carry a ball across a line defended by the opposing team. It is known chiefly through later descriptions and visual depictions.

Greek ball games: Ball games played in ancient Greece for recreation, training, or public display. Episkyros belongs to a broader Greek tradition of games played with balls.
Ancient Greece: The civilization and collection of societies that flourished around the Mediterranean from the archaic period onward. Episkyros is known as a game played in ancient Greek society.
Stele of Episkyros: A modern name for an ancient Greek relief depicting men playing a ball game. The relief is often presented as a visual representation of Episkyros.
Historical reconstruction: The reasoned recovery of past events and practices from incomplete evidence. Episkyros’s rules must be inferred from short texts and images rather than complete records.
Aporraxis: An ancient Greek ball game in which players repeatedly bounced a ball against the ground. It offers a contrasting example of Greek ball play organized around repeated bouncing.
Classical Athens: The Greek city-state of Athens during its cultural and political prominence in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Athenian sources and imagery form part of the evidence for Greek ball games.
National Archaeological Museum of Athens: A museum in Athens housing major collections of ancient Greek art and archaeology. A relief associated with Episkyros is displayed in this museum.
Ancient Greek literature: Literary works composed in ancient Greek across poetry, drama, history, and other genres. Scattered literary references provide much of the game’s written context.
Phaininda: An ancient Greek ball game associated with feinting, evasive movement, and deception. Its emphasis on evasion suggests a different style of play from Episkyros’s line contest.
Julius Pollux: A second-century CE Greek grammarian who compiled an encyclopedia of Greek words and customs. His account is a key written source for the rules attributed to Episkyros.

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