Duodĕcim Scripta
（
κύβοι, διαγραμμισμός: in late Greek
τάβλα). A game of mixed chance and skill, which must have been substantially the
same as our backgammon. The following points of identity may be regarded as established: The
game was played on a board of twelve double lines with fifteen white and fifteen black men;
the throws were counted as we count them; “blots” (
ἄζυγες) might be captured; the pieces (whether they started from home or not)
had to be brought home; and the winner was he who first cleared off his men. On the other
hand, there were three dice instead of two (see
Tessera), and it is impossible to say where the men started or how blots taken up
re-entered. In the initial position the pieces may have stood in three rows of five or five
rows of three, and either in the player's own table with a view to the double journey or in
the opponent's table with a view to the journey home. With the three dice the pieces would
soon be scattered, and thus a less artificial arrangement than our own may be thought
probable. The phrase
ὀπισθιδίη ὁδὸς in Agathias may seem
to favour the notion that they were played out and home. The board was
ἄβαξ (see
Abacus), more generally
tabula, or from its raised rim
alveus, alveolus; the men
ψῆφοι,
calculi; the situation at any
point of the game,
θέσις; to move,
τιθέναι,
dare; to retract a move,
ἀνατιθέναι,
reducere. In a fragment of Cicero (
ap. Non. p. 170, s. v.
Scripta) we find:
Itaque tibi
concedo, quod in duodecim scriptis solemus, ut calculum reducas, si te alicuius dati
poenitet. This privilege is more likely to have been of the nature of odds granted by
a superior player than a regular rule of the game.
The classical Greek writers mostly use
κύβοι, κυβεύειν, of
games into which skill entered as well as of mere dicing. That
κυβεία was a game of skill as well as chance is clear from Plato (
Rep. x. 604C,
Phaedr. 274 D) and from a story told by
Plutarch (
Artax. 17); cf.
Adelph. iv. 7, 21. Ovid alludes to the
Duodecim Scripta (
A. A. iii. 363-364) among
games which lovers are to play together; others are
latrunculi (357-358,
361-362), and “go-bang” (365-366). Martial includes among his modest wants
tabulamque calculosque (ii. 48). The celebrated jurisconsult P. Mucius
Scaevola was famed for his skill at Duodecim Scripta (
de Or. i. 50.217).
Quintilian (xi. 2) further tells the story that Scaevola, after losing a game, accurately
recalled all the throws and the way that each had been played; pointing out the move where he
had made a mistake, and verifying his own recollections by those of his opponent. This is
cited as an example of memory and logical sequence (
ordo).
None of the above passages shed much light on the details of the game. Our knowledge of them
is mostly gained from an epigram of Agathias (
Anth. Pal. ix. 482; also in
Brunck,
Anal. iii. 60) on a case of special ill-luck which befell the emperor
Zeno (A.D. 474-491). This epigram has been discussed by many scholars, but until lately
was never rendered intelligible. The problem has been solved independently by M. Becq de
Fouquières, in his
Jeux des Anciens, and Dr. H. Jackson, in the
English
Journal of Philology; on the few points where they differed, Dr.
Jackson has since given in his adherence to M. Becq de Fouquières's conclusions.
More than a hundred ancient boards, serving for six different games, had been found in Rome
alone
 |
|
Board for Duodecim Scripta. (Rich.)
|
down to 1877 (Marquardt,
Privatl. 838); but only a single example
shows the twelve lines. This is of marble, bears a Christian inscription, and is of very rude
workmanship and illiterate spelling. It has been engraved by Gruter (
Mon. Chr.
p. 1091), Becq de Fouquières (p. 364), and in a simplified form, omitting the
inscription, by Rich. This is to all intents and purposes a backgammon board, exhibiting the
four half tables of six lines each. Mention is made of boards and men of costly materials or
of peculiar construction. In Petronius (c. 33) Trimalchio plays on a board of terebinthwood,
with dice of crystal, and with gold and silver denarii for black and white men. Pliny (
Pliny H. N. xxxvii. 13) has an absurdly rhetorical
account of the splendours of an
alveus lusorius, in gold and jewels,
borne in Pompey's third triumph, B.C. 61; in the centre of it was a golden moon of thirty
pounds' weight. The emperor Claudius had his carriage fitted with a board which could not
upset, in order to play when travelling (
Claud. 33). The
tabula
lusoria described by Martial (xiv. 17) was also specially adapted for two different
games, probably on opposite sides. The first line refers to the Duodecim Scripta; the second,
modelled on a couplet of Ovid (
Trist. ii.
477-478), to the game of draughts (
latrunculi), in which the
player left with but one man is bound to lose to his opponent who has two. See Becq de
Fouquières,
Jeux des Anciens, 2d ed.
(1873), pp.
357-383; H. Jackson, in
Journ. of Philol. vii. 236-243; Marquardt,
Privatl. 834-838; and
Falkener, Games Ancient and
Oriental (1892).
