This lecture will present the results of a five-year research grant supported by the ERC Advanced Grant on ancient ludic culture (# 741520). This project aimed at generating a new vision of ancient Greek and Roman societies thanks to a pluridisciplinary and comparative approach of ancient sources (written, archaeological, iconographic). 1) Texts: reconstructing a lost heritage relating to play and education, ancient games and their rules, based on revising Greek and Latin literary, epigraphic, and papyrological sources, associated with new translations in the form of a commented edition of Pollux, Onomasticon, Book 9 and of an Anthology. 2) Archaeology: Play, identity, sociability and religion, based on the spatial distribution of game remains according to chronology, typology, and context on selected sites, settlements, cemeteries, sanctuaries, creating a reference typology, revising mistaken identifications. The identity of the players and the function of the games were analysed according to context, domestic, public, sacred, funerary, in the search also of the symbolic, religious or identity functions. 3) Iconography: like music and musical instruments, games too were categorized as male or female by the ancients. The task focused on the gender construction of children and youths through play and games, and on the ludic interaction of women and men, comparing Greek and Roman iconography, realities and representations. The lecture will address the risks, the gains and the methodological issues of such ambitious enterprise.