Tabula Board Game Help

[rosieglenn]

Hi,
I'm wanting to make a Tabula board game, but there seems to be some discussion over it's existence, in various websites/sources I've looked at. The best mention I've found is the Emperor Zeno thing which describes a game position, but was this game tabula and how was the board laid out? Also some say that movement was in the same direction for both players starting at the same point, others say they went round in opposite directions. I am confused, please help!
Rosie Wilkin

[Julia Langobardia]

I can only recommend Marco Fittas book on antique games:

Marco Fitta: Spiele und Spielzeug in der Antike – Unterhaltung und Vergnügen im Altertum, Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart, 1998

does anyone know, if there is anything similar in english?

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

Unfortunately the best website about Roman games went offline But there are basically two versions of boards available: one resembles our today's backgammon board with 24 fields, i.e. 2 rows of 12 fields. This is assumed to be the younger version. The older one consists of 36 fields, so to say it has a row more. The rules are more or less the same only that you start in the 36 field-version in the middle, go to the top then to the bottom (very roughly explained now). In contrary to modern backgammon both colors start at the same spot and not opposite.

For example one 36-field-board read as follows

ABEMUS INCENA
PVLLVM PISCEM
PERNAM PAONEM

If you understand a little Latin, you recognize that this was at a tavern and was the menu which you also could use as a game board

Not many boards have survived because most were scratched into stone on the steps of a temple or to be found like the above mentioned example at a tavern.

Apart from the book mentioned by Chris I just purchased the following book which covers games throughout history of mankind until today so it does not cover Antiquity only:

Ulrich Schädler (ed.), Spiele der Menschheit - 5000 Jahre Kulturgeschichte der Gesellschaftsspiele, 2007 Geneva, Switzerland

Then I have some books on my list concerning games but haven't got hold of them yet so I can't tell if they are good or not:

J. Väterlein, Roma Ludens. Kinder und Erwachsene beim Spiel im alten Rom, Amsterdam 1976.

R. G. Austin, Roman Board Games -Greece and Rome IV, 1934/35.

H. J. R. Murray, A history of board games other than chess (Oxford 1952, new 1978 New York).

R. Cl. Bell, board and table games from many civilisations, London 1960.

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

I have another book title which is also on my wish list:

Iving Finkel (ed.), Ancient Board Games in Perspective, British Museum Press 2006