Tabula (game)

Tabula, from a word meaning a plank or board, was a Greco-Roman board game for two players that gave its name to the tables family of games, of which backgammon is a member. The earliest description comes from an epigram by the Byzantine emperor Zeno, recorded by Agathias of Myrine in the sixth century AD, in which Zeno suffers a disastrous dice roll. From it, Becq de Fouquières reconstructed the rules in the 19th century. The board had 24 points, 12 on each side, and each player had 15 pieces that all began off the board and moved the same way, anticlockwise, according to the throw of three dice. A lone piece on a point could be captured and had to re-enter. There was no doubling die, and some details, such as whether captured pieces had to re-enter first, are unknown. Isidore of Seville credited its invention to a Greek soldier named Alea at Troy, and tabula was probably a refinement of the older ludus duodecim scriptorum. The word tavli is still used for tables games in Greece and neighboring countries.