How Did Ancient Greeks Kill Boredom?

It is a hot afternoon on the walls of Athens, around 530 BC. Two soldiers on guard have nothing to do, so they throw knucklebones in the dust. On a famous painted pot by Exekias, Achilles and Ajax do the same over a board game. Even heroes had empty hours. This film asks what ordinary Greeks did with those hours. It starts with the word skholē, "leisure", which gives us the word "school", and with what it meant for the people who had it and for those who worked while others rested. Then come the games: knucklebones cut from the ankle bones of sheep and goats, dice and the bets that followed them, the board game petteia, and ball games in the gymnasium. After them come the wine, the songs and the riddles of the symposium, and the theatre. The story also asks whose afternoons survive and whose vanish. The answer says as much about who could gather, speak, watch and lose as it does about fun.