It is also not clear whether there was a "bar". It is not known whether players had to re-enter 'hit' pieces before playing those on the board, nor whether players had to gather all pieces in the fourth quadrant before bearing off. The known differences compared with modern backgammon were: three dice were used, all pieces started off the board, both players moved in the same direction and there was no doubling die. ![]() If a piece was moved to a point occupied by an enemy singleton, the latter was sent off the board and had to be re-entered on the next turn. A piece resting alone in a space on the board (a singleton) was vulnerable to being captured. Two players had 15 pieces each, and moved them in the same direction – anticlockwise – around the board, according to the roll of three dice. The game was played on a board with a similar layout to that of a modern backgammon board: there were 24 points, 12 on each side. The rules of Tabula were reconstructed in the 19th century by Becq de Fouquières based upon this epigram. 474–475 476–491), given by Agathias of Myrine (6th century AD), who describes a game in which Zeno goes from a strong position to a very weak one after an unfortunate dice roll. The earliest description of "τάβλι" (tavli) is in an epigram of Byzantine emperor Zeno (r. Īccording to the Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville, tabula was first invented by a Greek soldier of the Trojan War named Alea. ![]() A game of τάβλι (tabula) played by Byzantine emperor Zeno in 480 AD and recorded by Agathias in circa 530 AD because of a very unlucky dice throw for Zeno (red), as he threw 2, 5 and 6 and was forced to leave eight pieces alone and thus prone to capture.
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