Agoranomika, the Ancient Greek Trading Game: Basic Instructions

Abstract

This document is a condensed version of the basic instructions for playing Agoranomika, primarily intended for teachers interested playing a version of this game in their own classrooms. For a full discussion of the theory and aims of this game, the phases of play, teacher strategies for guiding play, illustrations, and references, please see: David M. Ratzan, “Agoranomika: Playful approaches to teaching the serious economic and institutional history of measurement in the ancient Greek world.” In: Gabriel Mckee and Daniela Wolin, eds. 2022. Re-Rolling the Past: Representations and Reinterpretations of Antiquity in Analog and Digital Games. ISAW Papers 22.7. URI: https://hdl.handle.net/2333.1/3n5tbf7b. This paper describes the game Agoranomika, which is designed to help students learn some of the basic challenges associated with measuring, buying, and selling goods in the ancient Greek world. By inhabiting and working through some of the structural problems and costs associated with measurement in this interactive, strategic setting, students not only learn substantive lessons (e.g., what it takes to erect and maintain standardized measures; the economic role money plays as often the only pre-measured, commodified good in an ancient Greek market; or the relationship of standardized qualities to quantities), but also how to deploy their own lived experience creatively, critically, and responsibly in the analysis of ancient primary evidence. They also begin to appreciate the embeddedness of any social activity, since they must erect “market” norms for themselves in the classroom laboratory, thus leaving them more attuned to the importance of personal ethics and social norms in ancient society, rules which, unlike laws, often leave few explicit traces in our documentary or archaeological record. There is an introduction to the pedagogical history and theory of "serious" games, or educational, game-based simulations, with specific reference to ancient studies, followed by an Appendix, in which the game is fully described, including set-up, rules, phases of play, and possible follow-up discussions of primary texts and artifacts that relate directly to the establishment, negotiation, use, policing, and politics of measurement in Greek markets like the Athenian Agora. The author and editors have also provided a printable short version of the Appendix for those who wish to try this game in their own classrooms.