The ancient Romans had a variety of toys and games. Children used toys such as tops, marbles, wooden swords, kites, whips, seesaws, dolls, chariots, and swings. Gambling and betting were popular games in ancient Rome. Legislation heavily regulated gambling; however, these laws were likely not enforced. , , , and were all popular games in ancient Rome. They were similar to poker, tic-tac-toe, backgammon, and chess respectively. Nine men's morris may also have been a popular game in ancient Rome. Roman children also played games simulating historical battles and could pretend to be important government officials.
Gambling and betting
Gambling and betting were popular games in ancient Rome. Roman gaming tables frequently appear in the archaeological record; they are often unearthed in private buildings, public spaces, and urban areas. Finds of gambling-related materials are rarer in residential spaces than in public spaces. Possibly because gambling was a communal activity, therefore occurring primarily in social areas. Gambling tables are especially common near military sites. Inscriptions found on military gaming tables often reference foul play or violence: One inscription reads, "Get up! You know nothing about the game; make room for better players!" Two paintings discovered in Pompeii depict a brawl emerging between two players over a disagreement about the game; the brawl is interrupted by the innkeeper, who demands they exit the shop. Popinae, ancient Roman wine bars, provided attendees with gambling services. Due to their connotations of prostitution and gambling, the Romans viewed as centers of violence and crime. Those who managed private institutions that offered gambling services were euphemistically known as , meaning "entrepreneurs." Gambling without a gaming board, exclusively using dice, was also common in ancient Rome.
Although gambling was certainly extremely popular in ancient Rome, it was viewed as sinful and corrupt. According to the 4th-century Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, most members of the upper classes did not wish to identify themselves as gamblers, instead preferring the term , meaning "dicer."Ammianus Marcellinus. Res Gestae. 28.21. , the Latin term for a hobbyist gambler, was viewed in at least a somewhat derogatory sense. He described a gambling mania that was ubiquitous across all Roman social classes. Marcellinus argued that the decline of Rome itself was attributable to the pervasiveness of gambling; he claimed that gambling obsession prevented "anything memorable or serious from being done in Rome."Ammianus Marcellinus. Res Gestae. 14.6.25. Similarly, the 1st-century BCE poet Horace complained that "To nobler sentiment and manlier deed: Now the noble's first-born shuns the perilous chase, nor learns to sit his steed: Set him to the unlawful dice, or Grecian hoop, how skillfully he plays."Horace. Odes. 3.24. Juvenal, a 2nd-century satirist, criticized gambling as a waste of money better allocated towards the public good: "Is it a simple form of madness to lose a hundred thousand sesterces, and not have a shirt to give to a shivering slave?"Juvenal. Satires. 1.88-90. De Aleatoribus, an early Christian text falsely attributed to St Cyprian, condemning gambling and dice-games as impure and immoral.
Paranoia over young men losing their money through gambling was widespread in ancient Rome, and likely motivated the legislation against the pastime. Gambling was associated with the lower social classes; gamblers were viewed similarly to petty criminals. Connotations of low social status prompted the Roman fear that, through gambling, an individual could become indebted to another of lower social status. Roman youth were expected to dedicate their leisure time to activities of self-betterment. Such concepts may have influenced the Roman legislation on gambling, including the exemption of elderly persons from these laws. Numerous Roman emperors, such as Augustus and Claudius were enthusiasts in gambling. Claudius wrote a now-lost book about playing dice.Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, 5.33. This book is speculated to have been titled , which translates to On the Art of Dice. Augustus is recorded to have offered sums of money to his guests to ensure they continued betting and gambling. Emperors such as Caligula, Nero, or Commodus were all depicted as either enthusiastic gamblers or full-on gambling addicts by ancient biographers. However, these descriptions were possibly part of a smear campaign to discredit these unpopular emperors.
The earliest known ancient Roman gambling law is the , or the . The law most likely outlawed gambling and dicing. Although gambling was heavily regulated, these laws were lifted during the holiday of Saturnalia. There is in any case little evidence that regulations against gambling were well-enforced. Sports betting was exempt from Roman gambling laws, and it remained decriminalized even after the rise of Christianity. Sports gambling may have been viewed more favorably due to the lack of any large-scale industry centered around sports betting, the tendency for sports bets to occur between friends, and because such bets likely carried smaller stakes than other forms of gambling. Julius Paulus, a 2nd-3rd century Roman jurist, records three laws passed by Sulla regarding gambling: the , the , and the . According to Paulus, these laws exempted betting on "contests of manhood," specifically javelin-throwing, wrestling, running, jumping, and ancient Olympic sports, from the prohibition on gambling. The criminalization of gambling prevented, in some circumstances, the collection of gambling debts. Under Roman law, a could demand the repayment of money any member of their household lost through gambling. The losers of the bets could demand the restoration of their wealth from the of the winner's family. Slave owners operated according to identical principles regarding their slaves and gambling. Roman gambling laws may have primarily existed for symbolic reasons rather than any practical benefit derived from such legislation. These laws may have been used to portray their proponents as righteous citizens and the protectors of the ",” the customs and traditions of Ancient Rome.
Dice The majority of ancient Roman dice were visibly asymmetrical. However, this asymmetry may not necessarily stem from attempts to manipulate the outcome a game; some of the materials commonly used to create Roman dice, such as antlers, would have been difficult to mold into a symmetrical shape. The Romans possibly thought that the results of dice games were determined by fate rather than mathematical probability; henceforth, they may not have viewed the creation of symmetrical, balanced dice as important.
Romano-British dice are overwhelmingly six-sided and of cubic shape. However, this rule was not universal; a sample from Castleford consists almost entirely of irregular pieces of non-cubic dice. Composite dice were typically larger than standard Roman dice; they were capable of reaching up to 26 millimeters in size. During the earlier parts of the Roman occupation of Britain, the island was home to a unique variety of dice: the composite die. This type of die was often made from bone, usually cattle metapodia although the bones of other animals, such as horses, were also used. Cattle metapodia lack much meat, making them undesirable to butchers; they are also large and durable, with a narrow shaft making them suited for dice-creation. It is likely that composite dice were made by detaching the endings, or epiphysis, of the bones before removing the marrow stored inside the medullary cavity. Roman craftsmen may have used the remaining shaft of bone to create either a single die or multiple; the exact process is unclear. The metapodial bones initially contained holes which, during the creation process, were filled by another substance to form a semi-solid cube. In the final stage of composite dice creation, the pips might have been inlaid with black materials and the whole die may have been polished with wax.
Smaller dice were made by an elongated rod used to plane, or smooth, the cortical bone of a diaphysis. Then, a deep groove was used to saw off different segments of the bone, partially separating them into dice. They were possibly not completely separated at this stage; instead, they may have been loosely connected to each other through a remaining strip of bone. The dice may have only been separated after they had been marked with pips. Although, it is possible that the pip style was marked after separation and the dice were initially divided using the groove. Another sample of pre-650 CE dice from sites throughout the modern Netherlands, were made from various organic materials such as bone, ivory, or antlers. These dice display similar variation in their pip style, or the arrangement of dots on the dice: 50% have a dot surrounded by one concentric circle, 25% have a dot surrounded by two concentric circles, and another 25% have a central, usually circular, hole. Although the Netherlands was never conquered by the Romans, these dice were likely influenced by the Romans and resemble dice found in the Roman regions of Britain. Samples of 1st to 7th century dice unearthed around the Lower Danube display largely similar ornamentation; however, they bear slightly different characteristics depending upon their manufacturer.
Dice towers Dice were sometimes stored in , a dice box shaped like a wooden tower containing a spiral. Fritilli were used to prevent cheating by rolling dice without player intervention. The term "" has been theorized to refer to a dice tower based on its appearances in the works of Seneca, Juvenal, and Martial. The fritilli may have been synonymous with an ancient type of small pear or oval-shaped pots, particularly various deposits discovered in Pompeii. One example of such pottery from a Pompeian household is 7–15 cm high with a wide mouth and an oval body; its base consists of a small, flattened knob allowing it to stand more stably on its mouth rather than its base. This base has been identified as possibly a due to its initial location, which was nearby a set of dice. Another example of a similar piece of pottery has a smaller mouth, a more cylindrical shape, and a base consisting of a low foot. Although this example may also represent a , its initial location lacks the same proximity towards nearby dice. It is also possible that neither piece of pottery represents a ; neither piece has been directly identified with gaming pieces and similar pottery from the Casa del Quadretti teatrali contains traces of paint, possibly suggesting that it was not merely a dice-thrower. The archeological finds of pots suggest that, if these pots were , the exact methods by which a was used varied depending on the structure. In some pots, the mouth is large enough to allow dice to be inserted easily. Other pots had significantly smaller mouths, ensuring only small dice could be inserted. It is also possible that the dice were placed on the funnel and then thrown. disappeared from the archaeological record by the 4th century; by the 5th century, scholars were limited to hypothesizing about the characteristics of a .
The term was not the only word used to describe dice towers in ancient Rome; the terms and also appear in Roman literature. later appears in Medieval writings in reference to the king-piece in the game of . According to the 6th-century BCE Christian scholar Isidore of Seville, in his work , the word descends from the Greek word for tower. It also appears in the 4th or 5th century CE text to describe a dice tower. Another word for a dice tower, , appears in the Epigrams of Martial.Martial. Epigrams. 14.17.