Terracotta lekythos (oil flask) late 6th century B.C. Related to the Painter of Vatican G.31 Ajax and Achilles playing a board game, and AthenaDuring the second half of the sixth century B.C., a popular subject was that of the Greek heroes Ajax and Achilles playing a board game to while away their time during the siege of Troy. The most famous representation occurs on an amphora now in the Vatican Museums. Exekias, perhaps the greatest black-figure artist, made and painted the amphora, and he may also have invented the iconography. The subject was applied to all manner of other vases, as this representative example indicates.. Terracotta lekythos (oil flask). Greek, Attic. late 6th century B.C.. Terracotta; black-figure. Archaic. Vases