TA´BULA LUSO´RIA
TA´BULA LUSO´RIA (
πίναξ), a board for playing games, called also ALVEUS from having a raised rim. Ancient
backgammon and draughts, and the boards on which they were played, are
treated under
DUODECIM
SCRIPTA and
LATRUNCULI respectively. Other games, played with and without dice,
are described, though less intelligibly, by the grammarians (Pollux, 9.97,
98; Eustath.
ad Od. p. 1397). Bruzza, writing in 1877, states
that upwards of 100 tabulae lusoriae, serving for six different games, had
been found in Rome and the environs, mostly in the Castra Praetoria and the
Catacombs (
Bullett. comunale, 1877, pp. 81-99); from an
examination of subsequent lists it does not appear that any further
discoveries of a like sort have been made down to the present time. More
than 60 of these are of the type given below, in which 36 letters are
arranged in three double rows of six each: others, instead of the letters,
have 36 arbitrary signs which served the same purpose; and one in particular
repeats 36 times the words
[p. 2.753]palma feliciter expressed in a monogram. We have selected a
few of the more suggestive examples; in order to make each row consist of
six letters, it will be seen that some liberties are taken with the
spelling.
| 1. |
VIOTVS
|
0 |
LEBATE
|
| |
LVDERE
|
0 |
NESCIS
|
| |
DALUSO
|
0 |
RILOCU[M]
|
| 2. |
SEMPER
|
0 |
IN HANC
|
| |
TABVLA
|
0 |
HILARE
|
| |
LVDAMV
|
0 |
SAMICI.
|
| 3 |
VICTOR
|
|
VINCAS
|
| |
NABICE
|
|
FEELIX
|
| |
SALBUS
|
|
REDIAS.
|
| 4 |
INVIDA
|
|
PVNCTA
|
| |
IVBENT
|
|
FELICE
|
| |
LVDERE
|
|
DOCTVM.
|
| 5 |
ABEMUS
|
|
INCENA
|
| |
PVLLVM
|
|
PISCEM
|
| |
PERNAM
|
|
PAONEM,
|
|
BENATORES.
|
Nos. 1 and 2 are divided in the middle by a representation of the
calculi with which the game was played; No. 3 by the
figure of a sailing ship. Nos. 2 and 4 are metrical, after a fashion. The
forms LEBATE (
leva te,
“take yourself off” ), NABICE (
naviga), SALBUS and BENATORES show the confusion of
b and
v, as in Spanish and modern
Greek; PAONEM illustrates the French
paon. In No. 1 the M of
LOCVM seems to have been inserted by mistake,
as the six letters are complete without it. The word BENATORES is of course not included in the letters that mark the
board; it may imply that the game afforded a mild excitement to tired
sportsmen after their day's work. Nos. 1 and 3 were found in a Christian
tomb, and have been quoted to prove that the discipline of the early Church
as regards games of chance was not very strict. Compare
Dict. of Chr.
Ant., s. v.
Dice.
It is conjectured that this was a game in which each player tried, under
certain unspecified conditions, to get three men into a ros (
Ov. A. Am. 3.365,
Trist. 2.481; cf. Isid.
Orig. 18.64).
A tabula lusoria described by Martial (
14.17）
had backgammon and draught boards on opposite sides. (Marquardt,
Privatl. 836-838.)
[
W.W]
