BOARD GAMES IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ANCIENT ROME
For a long time I try to gather the names of the relevant board games that were played in the ancient Greek world and when I think that I have gathered them all, I find something new. The Greek literature is, at its biggest part, lost. The researchers are trying to revive the historical truth, piece by piece, in a puzzle and unfortunately we will never be able to have the whole of it. A game in Knossos that Evans calls it “Mega Zatrikion”. A game board in the excavations of ancient Troy. Reports about board games in the Homer’s circle.
Board games that were played by the ancients Greeks were the
“poleis” or “polis’, “tilia”, “chora pezin”, “zatrikion”, “gramme”,
“pente gramme”, “diagrammismos” and all of them can be put under
the general name “pettia”, which means all the board games. Games
with dices or with knuckle-bones that were played by the ancient
Greeks are the “astragalismos”, “kyvia”, “pessi”. “cotta”.
Here, I will remind you the three basic things that are needed
in order to play tavli: 1. Dices with six sides 2. Board with
a system of six or twelve 3. Two players that are facing each
other.
These three basic things are a historical confirmed fact in ancient
Greece. We have the classic dices of six sides in archeological
founding, some of them have on them the painted figure of the
inventor Palamides (National Archeological Museum). We have also
lots of painted images of the classic game between Achilles and
Aeantas, of different technique and of different times. In all
of them, it is clear that they play something. They may play
tavli, they may play chess, they may play “pettia”. I believe
that the differences in the decoration of the game are owned
in the different artists and the knowledge that they had in their
time about the board games.
The picture with Achilles and Aeantas to play, either they have
spectators or not, is the same like the one we can see in a Greek
yard or a Greek café, 3000 years later. It is six of one and
half a dozen of the other. I refer it with an emphasis because
in the oldest Egyptian images that most writers use in order
to support the assumption of the Egyptian origin of tavli , in
most of them we can see only one person with a board (how this
now means a game between two persons only them are the ones who
know it).
So what we have until now. Games in board are played in the whole
east Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. The king game of Our, the
senet and seega in Egypt, in Troy, in Minoan Crete. But Greece
and Ionia are the areas where this tradition creates a big number
of variations of board games. With the extension of the Greek
civilization during the Macedonian conquest and the descendants
of the Great Alexander, the perfectible Greek board games came
in touch with the Persian and Indian tradition. With the removal
of the factor luck (dices) was created chess, which was brought
in Europe of dark ages by Arabs, either through the crusaders
or through Spain and Cicely, which were their European conquests.
Tavli continues to be played in the same way that was played
by the ancient Greeks. Regardless to which empire owns this area,
the tradition continues in all levels. We have a big number of
games in the Greek area that are played 3000 years later, with
exactly the same way. The “kotsi”, the “agalmata”, the “pentavola,
why not and the tavli?
“Tilia” was the name of the forerunner of the today’s tavli.
Which became ‘tabula” in the ancient Rome and “tavlion” in
Byzantium. "Tables" were the name of all board games
in the Anglo-Saxonic
world and "talf" for the Scandinavians.
The games that are played by the Romans under the general title
of Tabula and are the continuity of the Greek ones are : the
Duodecim, the Scriptorum, the game of the 12 philosophers*,
the Latrunculi, the Terni Lapilli. The Romans are also passionate
craps players and we do not need to remind the tradition with
the robe of Christ, which was played in craps or the phrase
of
Julius Cesar “the die is cast”.
With the fall of the Roman empire and the entrance in the Dark
age, every evolution of the games stops, except for the craps
, which are continued to be played. Tavli continues its evolution
in Byzantium and in Arabic world. Europe starts to “learn it
again” from Arabs, knowledge that drives to the board games
and to backgammon. In Othman Empire are created two from the
today’s
Greek variations of the game and this is the reason why they
have Arabic names, moultezim and gioul. And they pass as tradition
to all the people who were part of the Othman Empire (tavli
is called gioul mpara in Bulgaria).
In conclusion, I believe that today’s “plakoto” and “portes” (doors) along with the childish “eureka”, are come directly from the ancient Greece. Backgammon is the Greek “portes” with the rule of double, which was added in the 20th century. “Feyga” (go) (multezim) is a variation, which was developed by the people of the Othman Empire, mostly of the area of Asia Minor. This explains why is the basic game in Turkish tavli. Beloved to the Greek people of Ionia , took the name “feyga” (go) along with their entrance to greece, us refuges after their persecution from Asia Minor.