Tabula or Roman backgammon
If you were sitting at a pavement café near the Coliseum in Rome some two thousand years ago, or whatever was the equivalent of a pavement café for this era, you might well have seen Roman citizens engaged in a game called Tabula, or Roman backgammon. If you were privileged to enter the higher levels of Roman society, you could have met one of the most famous of Roman backgammon players, the Emperor Claudius. Given his reputation for bloodthirstiness, defeating him at backgammon would probably not have been a wise strategy.
The Romans were not the inventors of backgammon. By all accounts it was played centuries before the Roman empire came on the scene, but they did play a role in paving the way for the game of backgammon that were are familiar with today. The word Tabula is the Latin for board. We can also see how the English word Table, shares a similar root. There is evidence of how the game was spread by Roman soldiers and merchants throughout the length of the Roman Empire.
Unlike other ancient games that have been lost in the mists of history, there is written and archaeological evidence of Tabula, including an ancient mirror with an illustration of a game in progress, and an account of a game played by the Emperor Zeno some one thousand five hundred years ago. The Emperor had gotten himself into a tight corner and perhaps this game was described for posterity so that others could learn from his errors.
Tabula or Roman backgammon, like many of today’s backgammon games, was played for stakes, but unlike today’s game it does not seem to have been widely played for entertainment value alone. Tabula shared in common with contemporary backgammon a board divided into twenty-four divisions and the use of fifteen counters by each player. The counters were also colored differently so that each player could identify their pieces. Another similarity to today’s game was the way moves were made according to the outcome of a dice throw. The dice were also thrown from a dice box. Other similarities include an objective similar to backgammon’s bearing checkers off the board, and the concept of blots – two checkers placed on top of each other cannot be hit.
Although the similarities are extensive, there were also a number of differences with the game we know today. The board used in Tabula or Roman backgammon, did not have the narrow triangular, alternately colored divisions of the board that today’s players are familiar with, but the divisions were of a rectangular shape. Each checker had to be entered onto the board from the first square and they were moved in an anti-clockwise direction. The throwing of three dices determined which moves could be made for between one and three checkers. Evidence shows that the counters were generally made from bone, while the dice box was made of wood.
