Latrunculi
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| Genre(s) |
Board game Abstract strategy game |
|---|---|
| Players | 2 |
| Setup time | 1 minute |
| Playing time | Unknown |
| Random chance | None |
| Skill(s) required | Strategy, tactics |
| Synonym(s) | Latrunculi Latrones |
Ludus latrunculorum, latrunculi, or simply latrones (“the game of brigands”, from latrunculus, diminutive of latro, mercenary or highwayman) was a two-player strategy board game played throughout the Roman Empire. It is said to resemble chess or draughts, but is generally accepted to be a game of military tactics. Because of the paucity of sources, reconstruction of the game's rules and basic structure is difficult, and therefore there are multiple interpretations of the available evidence.
The game of latrunculi is believed to be a variant of earlier Greek games known variously as Petteia, pessoí, psêphoi, poleis and pente grammaí, to which references are found as early as Homer's time. In Plato's Republic, Socrates' opponents are compared to “bad Petteia players, who are finally cornered and made unable to move.” In the Phaedrus, Plato writes that these games come from Egypt, and a draughts-like game called Seega is known to have been played in ancient Egypt.
In his Onomasticon, the Greek writer Julius Pollux describes Poleis as follows:
The game played with many pieces is a board with spaces disposed among lines: the board is called the “city” and each piece is called a “dog;” the pieces are of two colors, and the art of the game consists in taking a piece of one color by enclosing it between two of the other color.
Among the Romans, the first mention of latrunculi is found in the Roman author Varro (116–27 BC), in the tenth book of his De Lingua Latina (“On the Latin Language”), where he mentions the game in passing, comparing the grid on which it is played to the grid used for presenting declensions. An account of a game of latrunculi is given in the 1st-century AD Laus Pisonis:
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