Although no one visiting Greece today could believe that the antic greeks did not invented the game of backgammon, there is little evidence of the practice of this type of game at the time of Achileus, Socrates or Alexander. There is about fifty representations on ceramic of a game being played by the two mythic hero, Achileus and Ajax prior to their fight for the conquest of Troy and a few mention of race games in the litterature of some antic greek writters or in their latin commentators. But to my knowledge, not a single board game excavated by an archeologue. This fact is in contradiction with the popularity of the topic of the two hero playing a game in the presence of the godness Athena amongst the artist of the fifth century B.C. where we can find an echo of the divination aspect of the game. The litterature also is full of reference to board games where they appear so common that they were used by writters to make allegories supposed to be understood by a large number of their contempories. There is a reproduction online
of an article written by Roland G. Austin (Antiquity, September, 1940) which gives a good insight on the difficulty to study the games from Greece. What can be concluded from our present knowledge is that several games were played in Greece. Some of them were position games, presenting similarities to draughts, one of them apparently called the game of the city, mentioned in Aristotle and Plato. Games using dices were also known ranged apparently under the generic name of κυβεια ('kubeia') representing the game with dice (κυβοι 'kuboi', i.e. 'dice'). As a matter of fact, many dices have been found in Greece where they seem to have represented a common form of entertainment for children as well as been part of a ritual symbolising the end of childhood.
At the time of the Roman empire, it becomes even more difficult to get a clear image of the reality of the time. The game probably remaind popular in the oriental side of the empire and spread out in all direction due to both military and trading activities. From the writtings of the time and some archeological evidences, a game close to backgammon seems to have enjoyed a large popularity amongst Roman citizens. Composed of two rows of twelve squares and called duodecim scripta, it apparently involved the throw of dices for the movement of the pieces. It was also known by the names of alea or tabula refering either to the random mode of the game or to the form of the board.
The specimen on the left was found in the early stage of the city of Babylone and could be from the same family. However, it present the particularity of been made of three lines of twelve squares and could be a mix between the Egyptian Senet and the Roman tabula. Some historians believe that Duodecim Scriptora is the same as the game of the six six-lettered words which present similarities with the babylonian baord presented above. This game was played all across the Roman Empire, in taverns, brothels, private homes, and frontier forts.
Numerous boards have been found from Egypt to Britain, but especially in and around Rome. It might have served as a popular divination tool as proved by the verses composed by the words forming the board. See the site on Felix Sex
for further discussion on this matter. Tabula is a generic name for a group of similar games played in Medieval Europe (Ad Elta Stelpur & Sixe-Ace) and Arabia (Nard) which have produced the modern game of Backgammon and inherited feature from the oriental game of Twenty square and Senet. It is unclear whether Nard originated from the latin Tabula or the the oriental Senet and some stories even attribute its invention from Iran or India. The Persians call the game "Takhteh Nard" which is Persian for "Battle on Wood". (Takhteh = Wooden board) and (Nard = Battle). Nard spread to the Far East in about 220 AD and became widely popular. (source: Tabula
). Tabula spawned a series of games throughout Europe, such as Ad Elta Stelpur in Iceland, Taefle and Fayles in England (1025 AD), Sixe-Ace in Spain (1251 AD), and Tourne-case in France.
Although no one visiting Greece today could believe that the antic greeks did not invented the game of backgammon, there is little evidence of the practice of this type of game at the time of Achileus, Socrates or Alexander. There is about fifty representations on ceramic of a game being played by the two mythic hero, Achileus and Ajax prior to their fight for the conquest of Troy and a few mention of race games in the litterature of some antic greek writters or in their latin commentators.
The specimen on the left was found in the early stage of the city of Babylone and could be from the same family. However, it present the particularity of been made of three lines of twelve squares and could be a mix between the Egyptian Senet and the Roman tabula. 
