Ancient Greek Games

The Greeks took games of all kinds very seriously, but especially physical athletic competition. The Greeks believed that their gods particularly loved to see strong, fit, graceful human bodies.  So one way to get on the good side of the gods was to exercise, to eat right, to oil your skin, to create a beautiful body that the gods would love.

Because of the Greek tendency to turn everything into an agon, a competition, this also meant that there were a lot of athletic competitions in Greece. The most famous of these is the Olympic Games, but there were other games held in other places as well, like the Isthmian Games at Corinth.

Discus Thrower (classical period)

Young men (from richer families who didn't have to work) in most Greek cities spent a lot of their time training for these competitions, and the best of them were chosen to compete against the best young men from other cities. Then they would all meet, at the Olympic Games or the Isthmian Games or elsewhere, and compete for prizes and for the favor of the gods. Of course these games also served as good training for the army, because all these men would be soldiers as well. The events were the same kind as in the Olympics today: running, jumping, throwing a javelin, and throwing a discus. Only men could compete.
Greek boys also played games which were not part of the Olympic games, like field hockey. 

We do also see Greek girls throwing balls, though the Greeks were much less interested in physical activity for girls. The girl in the above picture is juggling three balls. Nothing about the picture indicates that she is an entertainer or an acrobat. She is dressed like an ordinary girl..

Greeks also played less active games like dice and marbles, and knucklebones, and checkers. This is a famous vase from the Vatican museum showing Achilles and Ajax playing checkers.
Even in these games, though, the competition was very important, and there was a feeling that losing at games meant that the gods didn't like you.