Five Lines

Five Lines, from the Greek pente grammai, is the modern name given to an ancient Greek tables game known from archaeological and literary evidence. Two players each moved five counters across a board marked with five lines, with moves apparently determined by the roll of a die, similar in spirit to other ancient race games played across the Mediterranean world. The winner is thought to have been the first player to place all of their pieces on the board's central sacred line, though no complete ancient description of the rules survives. Because the original rulebook is lost, modern understanding of Five Lines rests on scholarly reconstruction rather than a continuous unbroken tradition of play; researchers including Ulrich Schadler and Stephen Kidd have each proposed detailed reconstructions of how the game was likely played, drawing on surviving boards and counters. The earliest known physical examples of Five Lines boards come from Anagyros in Attica and date to the seventh century BCE, making it one of the oldest documented tables games from the ancient Greek world.