Some Roman board games

Of the many themes treated in clever mock-didactic poems, table-games was one (Ovid Trist 2.485). Yet despite this, our knowledge is small and caution is always wise. What we know, we owe to Ovid,2 to Martial (14.13-18), to the so-called Laus Pisonis (P.L.M. 1.22lf.) and to one or two sources of lesser account. We have, too, the evidence of archaeology, and this is important.