Politics, teaching antiquity and games: the experience of the Political Vocabulary of Antiquity Project

This paper discusses the teaching of Ancient History in Brazil through the experience of Projeto Vocabulário Político da Antiguidade (Political Vocabulary of Antiquity Project). This project has been developed at the Federal University of Paraíba in João Pessoa, Brazil, since 2016, with a team consisting of professors and students from undergraduate History and Classics programs. The project’s main goal is to create didactical materials that facilitate the teaching of politics and Antiquity to students aged 11 to 17, based on the translation of Greek and Latin texts. This paper will present two educational games developed by this project to teach the theory of forms of government in an engaging and enjoyable way. The positive results of the project highlight the importance of modernizing the teaching of forms of government regbased on the works of authors such as Herodotus, Aristotle, Polybius and Cicero. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the study of Antiquity can effectively contribute to the political awareness of young citizens.