How Romans Played Backgammon

Backgammon has an old history with Rome. There was even a wall that was discovered by archaeologists that had carvings of tables. It was depicting the games from Pompeii. Nero was a famous Roman emperor played some games and placed huge bets. Another popular emperor, Claudius had placed a backgammon set for the carriage he used. He would decide on problems using the dice and at times he would play on his travels.

Romans called Backgammon by many names. It had several other versions. Their board had twelve lines. They used markers. The markers were had dark and light colors. Another version of the game was called Tabula which literally meant table. Back then it was a privilege to be able to play the game with the emperor because it could mean that you are apart of the elite society.

Tabula is a game where the dice used are three. People started to gamble more that's why the Roman government had to make it illegal at one time. The Romans brought Tabula later on to other countries in Europe.

However Rome wasn't the first country to have Backgammon. There were other countries but the one played in Rome resembled closely to the modern game being played today. Many evidences showed how Tabula was made popular by the soldiers of Rome as well as Roman traders. There have been many archaeological item recovered that showed evidence of Tabula which includes a very old mirror. The mirror had illustrations of Tabula being played. One emperor from Rome, Zeno even wrote about it more than one thousand years before.

Tabula had been famously played with bets being place and others played it for amusement. Tabula and the modern board used for the backgammon we know shares similarities. First both boards are divided into twenty four points. It also used counters for both players which totals into fifteen all in all. The second thing is that both games were dictated by throwing the dice first. The dice should be place in the box as well. Bearing off the markers on the backgammon board was the goal for both games. In Tabula and the modern backgammon players can use blots to prevent getting hit.

There are things that are different for Tabula and the new backgammon today. The board typically used today has a narrower size shaped in a triangle. It has alternate colors. The Romans had the board shaped in a rectangle. They moved the markers in the opposite direction. They used bones as markers and a wooden box.