Palamedes - Games Master

Palamedes was a Greek hero who fought in the Trojan War. His father was Nauplius, King of the island of Euboea. Palamedes was known for his great intellect. He was said to have invented many useful devices, such as alphabetic letters, mathematical symbols, the use of letters as number symbols, and the first Greek boardgame. He knew the importance of signs and symbols; his inventions developed civilisation by encouraging order. The Greek army whiled away their time with Palamedes’ game as they waited at Aulis to depart for Troy, and later through the long years of the Trojan War. The game was a helpful distraction, which reduced quarrelling and in-fighting within the army.

Palamedes himself nonetheless became a victim of in-fighting. The stories say that Palamedes became an enemy of Odysseus, King of Ithaca. Odysseus was bound by an oath to join the mission to Troy, but he really didn’t wish to go. Odysseus pretended to be mad; Palamedes saw through his deception and revealed it, forcing Odysseus to leave his family and join the army. Odysseus got revenge much later by forging a letter from King Priam to Palamedes, pretending that Priam was bribing Palamedes to betray the Greeks. King Agamemnon believed the deception and gave Palamedes over to the Greek army for execution. The grief-stricken Nauplius got his own revenge, causing many of the Greek leaders wives’ to be unfaithful to their husbands, and wrecking the Greeks’ ships off the Euboean coast by luring them in with false beacons.

Palamedes is not mentioned in the Odyssey, and even in ancient Greece, some said that his stories were a later invention. Nonetheless, he was a celebrated figure, known for his cleverness and ingenuity, and pitied for his ignoble death.

This red-figure vase was made in Athens, in Greece, in the sixth century BCE. It is a cup, although the foot and handles have been broken off and lost over time. The cup is thought to have been created by the circle of artists working around the Painter of Thalia. The broken fragments of the cup were reassembled in the late 1960s; the darker, scratched original fragments can be seen within the smooth orange of the modern ceramic that helps to hold the cup fragments together.

The inner image, the tondo, depicts a hoplite soldier kneeling at a boardgame. The painter has carefully depicted the soldier’s equipment. He holds a hoplite shield, with the interior arm band visible across his left arm, and the tassels hanging down from the shield’s inner lacing. In his left hand he holds a long spear. The soldier wears shoulder armour, with running dogs depicted on both bands. He wears a protective breastplate over a short chiton. The soldier has pushed his spectacular Corinthian helmet off his face and up onto the top of his head. Beneath his helmet we see his long hair and the beard that reveals that he is no longer a youth. The soldier’s shins are protected by a pair of greaves, and we can see his toes showing through a pair of sandals that have been painted with a dilute slip. The central tondo has been surrounded by deliberate red slip; this is rather unusual and would have made the tondo really stand out.

Many vases depict the heroes Achilles and Ajax playing a boardgame (see Clash of the Dicers for an example by Exekias). For that reason, some people have argued that the soldier on this cup is Achilles. Nonetheless, the soldier on this cup appears alone. The image is more like gem stone images of Palamedes, kneeling at a gameboard alone. These factors encouraged Véronique Dasen’s conclusion that we see here Palamedes, not just playing a boardgame, but inventing the boardgame. He kneels at the block which holds the boardgame. There are five pieces on the board in front of him; this suggests the popular game Pente Grammai, or ‘5 Lines’. Palamedes is holding a counter or dice in his hand above the board. His eyes are keenly focused on the unfolding action.

The exterior of the cup likely depicts a dokimasia – a sort of review in which members of the Athenian cavalry demonstrated that they and their horses were fit for service and that they met the financial threshold (see Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 49.1). The horsemen approach a man who is making notes on a tablet. Véronique Dasen has suggested that this outside image connects thematically to the image on the interior, as a dokimasia demonstrates good order and is the kind of administrative activity made possible by Palamedes’ inventions. For further detail on the vase, see Dasen and Cahn in the Further Reading.

Attic red-figure kylix cup, Circle of the Thalia Painter, circa 510BCE. Housed in a private collection: Galerie Cahn, Basel, Switzerland, 133. https://cahn.ch/ .

Beazley: 275053, https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/2E227AF1-2078-4314-A147-49BB617C8B2A

ARV² 1626.115, 1708, Para 332.

Exterior of the cup, c. 510BCE. Galerie Cahn, Basel, Switzerland, 133. https://cahn.ch/ .

6th century BCE Etruscan cornelian scarab gem featuring Palamedes.

British Museum 1868,0520.19.

Palamedes. Games Master begins by taking an image of Palamedes at his boardgame and going back in time to the moments before his inspired invention of the game. We see him walking through the Greek camp. This involves a mixing of worlds, with the vase figure represented under a realistic night sky. Behind him we see some of his fellow-soldiers silhouetted in the darkness.

Palamedes sees a flock of birds flying above him in the triangular shape of the letter delta (D). He is inspired by the shape, and he realises the importance of signs and symbols. Letters appear to fall from the sky into his hand. He brings them to his new boardgame board, and begins to set out the letters and game counters. He rolls the dice and begins to play. The game pieces each represent a warrior. Palamedes sees the counters leap up in warrior form and begin to fight.

The animation finishes with a quotation from Gorgias’ Apology of Palamedes. This text imagines Palamedes defending himself when he is accused by the Greek army. You can see more about this in the Palamedes PowerPoint (on the Further activities tab).

The music was created for this animation by Edwan (www.edwanmusic.com).

This animation was created with French text for the 'De la case au pixel' exhibition at the Swiss Museum of Games. https://museedujeu.ch/fr/. It is a part of the project: Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, https://locusludi.ch.

The animation reflects research into the relationship between the abacus and games, which is the key topic of the Swiss Museum of Games exhibition. It reflects the special ability of games to bring soldiers together and ease social tensions.

Reasearch papers:

Dasen, V., and Gavin, J., “Game Board or Abacus? Greek Counter Culture Revisited”, in Caré, B., Dasen, V., Schädle, U. (eds), Back to the Game: Reframing Play and Games in Context, Lisbon, Associação Ludus, 2021,  227-271  Open Access: https://sciendo.com/it/article/10.2478/bgs-2022-0009 (= Board Games Studies Journal, 16, 1, 2022, 251-307).

Nicot, F., "Voici la plus ancienne représentation d'une leçon de maths datant de la Grèce antique (et vous allez tout comprendre !)", Sciences et avenir  06.05.2022. https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/archeo-paleo/archeologie/voici-la-plus-ancienne-representation-d-une-lecon-de-maths-datant-de-la-grece-antique-et-vous-allez-tout-comprendre_163309.

Lapirot, O., “La plus vieille leçon de maths”, an interview V. Dasen and J. Gavin, Sciences et Vie Junior, 399, 2022, 38-41 https://zenodo.org/records/7504834#.Y7YEhOzMJ10.

Vespa, M., “Les effets néfastes de la kubeia. Mise en jeu du prestige et de l’image sociale en Grèce classique”, in Dasen, V., Vespa, M. (dir.), Dossier: Bons ou mauvais jeux ?, Pallas, 114, 2020, 173-192 https://journals.openedition.org/pallas/19080.

Vespa, M., "Tales of Imitation: Palamedes, the Cranes, and Interspecies Learning in Greco-Roman Antiquity", Illinois Classical Studies, 47, 2, 2022, 406-431 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/916494.

On Palamedes' inventions:

Vespa, M., “La sagesse de Palamède: les dés, les pions et l’établissement d’un ordre (à propos de Philostrate, Sur les héros, 10 Follet)”, in Dasen, V., and Bouvier, D. (eds) Héraclite: Le temps est un enfant qui joue, Collection Jeu/Play/Spiel 1, Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2020, 75-94 https://zenodo.org/records/4536216#.Yp-7NuxBx10.

Vespa, M., “Au commencement était la faim. Récits sur l’origine des jeux dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine”, in Dasen, V., and Vespa, M. (eds.) Play and Games in Classical Antiquity: Definition, Transmission, Reception, Collection Jeu/Play/Spiel 2, Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2021, 125-145. https://zenodo.org/records/6464634#.YlqhnvNBxFk.

• Play ancient games online with Locus Ludi: https://locusludi.ch/play-ancient-online-games/
• Discuss: What board games do you know? Which ones do you enjoy playing?
• Download the powerpoint presentation: Palamedes Panoply.pptx