Tuesday 10 July 2007

ROMAN GAMES:

Latrunculi

The game of lātrunculī is believed to be a variant of an earlier Greek game known as petteia, pessoí, psêphoi, or pénte grammaí, to which references are found as early as Homer's time

Among the Romans, the first mention of lātrunculī is found in the Roman author Varro (116-27 B.C), in the tenth book of his Dē Linguā Latinā (“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. A detailed account of a game of lātrunculī is given in Calpurnius Siculus' Laus Pisonis to the game are found in the works of such writers as Martial and Ovid . The last mention of lātrunculī 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 but later research has shown this to be unlikely.

When chess came to Germany, the chess terms for "chess" and " check" 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 word for "chess

RULES

  1. Using an 8×12 board each player has 16 pieces. They are placed two at a time by alternate turns of play anywhere on this board. During this first phase no captures are made. (However, the image here shows a 12x8 board, and 12 ordinary pieces and a king for each player, and a specific starting position.)
  2. When the 32 pieces are in position each player adds a blue piece, called King or Dux.
  3. The pieces move forwards or backwards or sideways one square at a time. There is no movement in diagonal.
  4. A capture is made when two pieces enclose in a line a rival piece. Captured pieces are retired from the board. Corners can also be used to capture enemies, but not the sides.
  5. The king can move like the rest of the pieces, or jumping over an enemy piece that is in an adjacent square. The jumped piece is not captured by the move. Of course, the move can have as consequence the capture of another piece. The king is captured by surrounding him on all 4 sides and the game is lost.
  6. If a piece is moved voluntarily between two enemy pieces, it is not captured.
  7. The game ends when a player has lost all of his pieces or when a barrier is formed that no one can pass. The player who has captured more enemy pieces wins if there is a stalemate.

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