Sources (Spain). 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. Latrunculi is often compared to a draughts-like game with custodial capture, called
seega, known in Egypt from the late 18th century. 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: When you are weary with the weight of your studies, if perhaps you are pleased not to be inactive but to start games of skill, in a more clever way you vary the moves of your counters on the open board, and wars are fought out by a soldiery of glass, so that at one time a white counter traps blacks, and at another a black traps whites. Yet what counter has not fled from you? What counter gave way when you were its leader? What counter [of yours] though doomed to die has not destroyed its foe? Your battle line joins combat in a thousand ways: that counter, flying from a pursuer, itself makes a capture; another, which stood at a vantage point, comes from a position far retired; this one dares to trust itself to the struggle, and deceives an enemy advancing on its prey; that one risks dangerous traps, and, apparently entrapped itself, counter traps two opponents; this one is advanced to greater things, so that when the formation is broken, it may quickly burst into the columns, and so that, when the rampart is overthrown, it may devastate the closed walls. Meanwhile, however keenly the battle rages with cut-up soldiers, you conquer with a formation, that is full, or bereft of only a few soldiers, and each of your hands rattles with its band of captives. Allusions to the game are found in the works of such writers as
Martial and
Ovid and they provide ideal evidence as to the method of capture used in the game with passages such as:
unus cum gemino calculus hoste perit, Ov.
Ars amatoria 3.358 ("when one counter perishes by a twin foe");
cum medius gemino calculus hoste perit, Ov.
Tristia 2.478 ("when a counter perishes in the midst by a twin foe"); and
calculus hae (sc. tabula) gemino discolor hoste perit, Mart. 14.17.2 ("a counter of differing colour perishes on this [board] with a twin enemy"). Ovid also writes about the efforts to rescue an isolated piece away from the others: "how the different colored soldier marches forth in a straight line; when a piece caught between two adversaries is imperiled, how one advancing may be skilful to attack and rescue a piece moved forward, and retreating may move safely, not uncovered" (Tristia II 477–480). According to Ulrich Schädler, this indicates that the pieces in the game only moved one space per turn, instead of using the
Rook's move, otherwise an isolated piece's escape would have been relatively easy. Schädler also deduces from this that pieces were able to jump over other pieces into an empty square beyond, otherwise a rescuing piece could end up blocking the other piece needing rescue. The last mention of
latrunculi that survives from the Roman period is in the
Saturnalia of
Macrobius. For a long time, it was thought that the eighteenth book of
Isidore of Seville's
Etymologiae contains a reference to
latrunculi, and this was used to argue that the pieces on either side were of different powers and classes like the pieces in chess. R. G. Austin has argued, however, that the passage from Isidore on which this belief was based refers to an early form of
Tabula. :
De Calculorum Motu. Calculi partim ordine moventur, partim vage: ideo alios ordinarios, alios vagos appellant; at vero qui moveri omnino non possunt, incitos dicunt. Unde et egentes homines inciti vocantur, quibus spes ultra procedendi nulla restat. :
On the Movement of Stones. Some stones move in rows, some freely; thus, some are called ordinary, others free; and truly those that cannot be moved at all are said to be
inciti. From which even acting men for whom no hope of proceeding further remains are called
inciti. The
Stanway game, excavated near Colchester, has been identified by scholars such as
David Parlett as possibly being an example of
latrunculi. If this is true then it is possible there was a second piece other than the soldiers used in the game, and this has been interpreted by some reconstructions as a piece representing a "
Dux" (leader) or "
Aquila" (eagle). However, Ulrich Schädler suggests the game may instead be an example of a native Celtic game, such as
fidchell or gwyddbwyll, since there is no evidence for an extra piece other than the
latrones or
pessoi in any of the ancient Greek and Roman games.
Chess Latrunculi as well as
latrones is mentioned many times in
Ruy López de Segura's classic 1561 work
Libro de la invencion liberal y arte del juego del axedrez, also referring to mentions in
Jacobus de Cessolis's sermons on the theme of chess in the later thirteenth century. Latrunculi is mentioned on the first page of
Philidor's classic 1774 work "Analysis of the Game of Chess." Myron J. Samsin and
Yuri Averbakh have both supported the theory that
Petteia may have had an influence on the historical development of early chess, particularly the movement of the pawns.
Petteia games could have certainly been brought to central Asia and northern India during the rule of the
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and
Indo-Greek Kingdom which were known to combine Indian and Greek elements in their art, coinage, and religious practices. When
chess came to
Germany, the chess terms for "chess" and "
check" (which had originated in
Persian) entered the
German language as
Schach. But
Schach was already a native German word for
robbery. As a result,
ludus latrunculorum was often used as a
medieval Latin name for chess.
Board geometry Since, in archaeological excavations, it is usually hard to tell what game a gridded board was used for, it is hard to determine the size of the board on which
latrunculi was played.
R. C. Bell, writing in 1960, mentioned boards of 7×8, 8×8, and 9×10 squares as common in Roman Britain. W. J. Kowalski refers to the "
Stanway Game", an archeological find of 1996 in
Stanway, Essex, England, and believes the game was played on a board of 8×12 squares; the same size that was used a thousand years later for
courier chess. He later allowed a board of 10×11 squares. The rules may have varied much across the width of the
Roman Empire and through time. == Game rule reconstructions ==