According to the Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville, Alea was a Greek soldier of the Trojan War who invented the dicing game tabula. French sociologist Roger Caillois uses the term "alea" to designate those games which rely on luck rather than skill in Man, Play and Games. While Caillois notes the term is the Roman word for games of chance, Robert C. Bell suggests that the Greek game tabula, a precursor to modern backgammon, became more commonly known as "alea" "towards the end of the sixth century". However, games historian H. J. R. Murray asserts the shift in nomenclature was in the other direction and the game "alea" was later referred to as "tabula".
References
Citations
- Lapidge & O'Keefe 2005, p. 60.
- Barney et al. 2006, XVIII.lx–lxix.2 (p. 371): "lx. The gaming-board (De tabula) Dicing (alea), that is, the game played at the gaming-board (tabula), was invented by the Greeks during lulls of the Trojan War by a certain soldier named Alea, from whom the practice took its name. The board game is played with a dice-tumbler, counters, and dice."
- Caillois 2001, pp. 17ff.
- Bell 2012, p. 35.
- Murray 1952, pp. 31, 113.
Sources
- Barney, Stephen A.; Lewis, W.J.; Beach, J. A.; Berghof, Oliver (2006). The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-13-945616-6.
- Bell, Robert Charles (2012) . Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. New York: Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 9780486145570.
- Caillois, Roger (2001) . Man, Play and Games. Urbana and Chicago: University Of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-25-207033-4.
- Lapidge, Michael; O'Keefe, Katherine O'Brien (2005). Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge. Toronto: Toronto University Press. ISBN 978-0-80-208919-9.
- Murray, H. J. R. (1952). A History of Board Games Other Than Chess. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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