Table and gambling games of ancient Rome

People have been gambling long before the emergence of Rome. The oldest known dice were found by archaeologists in northern India, where the state of Harappa once existed. These dice are made of burnt clay in III millennium BC. Dice game Romans most likely borrowed from the Greeks, who themselves were gamblers and used the same hexagonal dice with dots on the edges, which are known to us now. So this gambling thing from the ancient times straight to the online casinos and no deposit bonuses in some way defining the human nature.

A dice game between Achilles and Ajax. Ancient Greek vase, VI century BC

Romans made dice from dried, cleaned and sharpened sheep bones. The different combinations that fell out even had their own names, the best "Venus", the worst "dogs". A special cup for the dice, in which they were mixed for throwing, was called "Turricula" (turret). The most famous variant of the game is the one in which each player rolls three dice, winning equal to the difference in the number of points rolled.

The Romans also played the simplest games, such as micatio. Two players simultaneously show several fingers on one hand, you should guess the total number of fingers shown by both players. They also played "eagle or tails", i.e. "sarita aut navim" - head or ship. On one side of a small Roman coin was the image of the rostrum, the ship's prow, and on the other the head of the god Janus. Another simple game - "par impar" (even or odd), when the host clenched in his fist a few pebbles, and the player must guess whether the number of these pebbles is even.

"Mill wheel" on a clay plate, chips made of stones of different colors

The simplest of Roman board games was called "mill wheel". The playing field was an image of a wheel with 8 spokes, each player had three chips, to win they had to be placed three in a row, as in our "crosses and zeros". The ancient Romans had more advanced games. One of the most common board games of the ancient Romans was called Duodecim. Hiking game set of folding leather field with attached to it chips and dice, belonging to a Roman soldier from the XX legion was found in Britain, and in Roman cities archaeologists meet a lot of "stationary" game fields engraved on stone tabletops.

A game table at Duodecimus. A tavern table in Pompeii, 1st century BC

Officially this game was forbidden as too gambling and ruinous for Roman citizens. The Romans found a witty way out - instead of a table of square playing fields, they simply wrote two columns of three words of six letters, each letter became a playing field. For example, on the tavern table such a game board is disguised as a menu:

• ABEMUS * INCENA
• PULLUM * PISCEM
• PERNAM * PAONEM

In translation: "We have for dinner: chicken, fish, ham, peacock", and at the bottom there is an inscription Bena Tores - "Bon Appetit". And the word HABEMUS ("have") is purposely misspelled to fit the six-letter format.

A modern box for the game of Duodecim

What was the game? First, players placed 12 chips on the middle row of fields. Then the dice were rolled, and the player who rolled the higher number began to move his chips counterclockwise across the fields until they reached the opposite half and left the board. Subsequently, the game simplified, losing the middle row. The playing field became simply a board, divided into two rows of 12 squares. Initially, all the chips of each player were lined up in a "tower" on the first square on his side of the board. This was not very convenient, as the column of chips could easily fall apart from the slightest shake.

The chip cup in the Tabula game. Modern replica

If you make the squares of the playing fields large enough to fit all 15 chips on them, the board became too bulky. Therefore, the fields were extended in height, their numbering was moved to the middle of the board. This version of the game was called Tabula ("board"). Chips now did not have to be flat, because there was no need to put them on top of each other. They became convex, made of ivory, ebony, or colored glass. Before the game chips were placed in special round cups on legs.

The playing field is a modern replica of early Tabula with flat chips

It can be seen that Tabula is a direct predecessor of modern backgammon. Everyone in ancient Rome was fond of this game, including emperors. For example, the statement of Julius Caesar at the crossing of the Rubicon "Alea jacta est", which is translated as "The die is cast", refers to Tabula. The phrase means "the dice are cast" (literally, "the dice are in action") and implies that now, whether you want to or not, you will have to walk. Another famous expression in Latin: "Tabula rasa" ("the board is clear") meant the game is over, all the chips have left the game board, the figurative meaning is "the game is over".