The game of twelve lines
Romans carved this board into forum steps, bath-house floors and tavern tables across the empire. We have hundreds of boards. We don't have the rules.
The board
Its Latin name, ludus duodecim scriptorum, means "the game of twelve markings". The board has three rows of twelve, split down the middle. The poet Ovid mentions it around the turn of the millennium, and it was popular for the next few centuries. Boards turn up from Britain to North Africa and Turkey, for example at Ephesus and Kibyra.
Many boards use letters instead of plain marks: six words of six letters, two to a row. The words often tease the players or tell them what's on the menu. This board is lettered like one carved into the paving of the forum at Timgad, Roman Thamugadi, in Algeria:
LUDERE · RIDERE
OCCEST · VIVERE"To hunt, to bathe, to play, to laugh: that is living."
A board from a tavern near the Praetorian camp in Rome lists the food instead: "We have for dinner: chicken, fish, ham, peacock."
The clue from Ostia
A board from Ostia, Rome's harbour town, is marked with letters that seem to give the order of play:
AAAAAA ✿ AAAAAA
DDDDDD ✿ EEEEEE
The historian H. J. R. Murray read it as the route a player's counters take. They come in along the middle row (A), run back along the far row (B, then C), and finish along the near row (D, then E) before leaving the board. Here your counters follow that route, and your opponent's run the mirror image. Both sides share the middle row, then go opposite ways, so each side's home row is the other side's middle leg.
Three reconstructions
Murray: 15 counters, 3 dice
After R. G. Austin (1934) and H. J. R. Murray (1952). Each side has fifteen counters and throws three dice. Each die moves a counter, and you can put several dice on the same counter. A lone counter that is hit goes off the board and must come back in before its owner moves anything else. Two or more counters on a point are safe and block it. You bear off once all your counters are in your home row. This is the version the Ludii game database suggests.
Two dice: 15 counters
Ulrich Schädler pointed out that "twelve markings" could mean the twelve pips of two dice, not the lines on the board. This option plays Murray's rules with two dice.
Short game: 6 counters, 2 dice
A quicker game in the spirit of Irving Finkel's simplified rules (2005), which use six counters and two dice. It keeps Murray's movement and hitting rules. Finkel's own set adds more, such as moving stacks together, which this version leaves out.
Or choose Your own rules and decide the open questions yourself: how many counters and dice, whether both sides run the same route, whether pairs block a point, whether you need an exact throw to bear off, and whether a knocked-off counter must come back in before anything else moves.
What came next
Over time the game lost a row. Its successor, tabula, had two rows of twelve. By the 600s Isidore of Seville could write "alea, that is, the game of tables". Tabula is an ancestor of backgammon.
What we know and what is a guess
Known
- The board: three rows of twelve, split in the middle.
- Dice and counters were used. Writers link it with gambling.
- The lettered boards, and the Ostia board's order of letters.
Best guess
- The route, even with the Ostia letters.
- Two dice or three, and fifteen counters.
- Hitting, blocking and how you bear off.
- Whether both sides went the same way. Schädler notes there is no evidence either way.
Choices this version makes
- A counter bears off only on an exact throw, as in Ludii's version of Murray's rules.
- If a die can be used, you must use it. Counters that have never entered can come in at any time.
- Doubles give no extra throw.
Sources
- Austin, R. G. (1934). "Roman Board Games. I." Greece & Rome 4 (10): 24–34. Part II (1935), 4 (11): 76–82.
- Murray, H. J. R. (1952). A History of Board Games Other Than Chess. Oxford, pp. 29–34.
- Schädler, U. (1995). "XII Scripta, Alea, Tabula: New Evidence for the Roman History of 'Backgammon'." In de Voogt (ed.), New Approaches to Board Games Research, IIAS Leiden, pp. 73–97.
- Finkel, I. (2005). Games: Discover and Play Five Ancient Games. British Museum.
- Duggan, E. (2016). Ancient Board Games: Duodecim Scripta & Tabula (lecture slides comparing the reconstructions).
- Ludii Portal: XII Scripta (Murray ruleset).
- Wikipedia: Ludus duodecim scriptorum
- Photo of the Timgad board: Carole Raddato on Flickr