Leisure

I did my project on leisure activities in ancient Rome, mostly in Pompeii. I figured out that I couldn't do a whole blog about leisure activity because it would simply take way too long, so I've decided to narrow it down to games that the Pompeian people played to pass time. Gambling was forbidden in the ancient times, and if you were found gambling, you would be thrown in jail. That's very interesting and shows how things have adapted overtime because now a days people burn through tons and tons of money gambling, and all of it goes to the casinos and helps keep them in business. back then, they didn't like gambling, so maybe that means they didn't want people giving worthless money away.

 This is a picture of rolling dice from the ancient times, that were made out of bone, and used in games called Tali and Tesserae, which were two fairly similar games that involved dice. Its interesting because now a days, there are many games in casinos that involve rolling dice, and it makes you think that maybe if the Latins didn't start using the dice, would there ever be any in the casino's now?

The dice were four sided, with numbers 1,3,5, and 7 on each side, and whoever collected the most points from the four rolls they had wins the game. The theory of "more points wins" has carried over for generations. The thought that many major sporting event, little board game, and other competitive activities are based on more points wins is a very interesting thought. The Romans couldn't been the ones who started it all, and without any of their master ideas, none of the aporting events would be able to happen.



Another game that they played was Pilae, which included a variety of balls and a stick. There were three major ball games all based on hitting the ball with the hands/arms. These included the Follis, in which the person used their body and arms/hands to help move the ball around, kind of like lacrosse no a days.


Sports from today have very similar traits to some of these activities, which is very cool, and makes you wonder how much of this has been carried from generation to generation?



There were many board games played back in the ancient times too. Board games were played on portable boards called "tabulae lusoriae" which at their cheapest could be made of wood and it could change and gewt more and more ewxpennsive, by using Marble to fit the table beautifully. Many "tabulae lusoriae" were built right in to the building foundation, so the such games could be played almost anywhere. 


Seeing that all of this stuff belonged in the past, it makes it very interesting to see where this could bring us in the future. Right now, kids pass time by playing on their iPhones, and computers, while social media melts peoples brains. Maybe, in the future, board games and dice will be back in style and people can lower their phone bills by just that much. You never know what the future is going to hold, but the one thing that you can be certain about is that without the brilliant minds of the ancient Romans, and the hard thinking they put in to everything, it would be hard to believe that this stuff would all be here right now, amusing us day in and day out. They really changed everyday life forever, and that is an amazing thing to think about.

https://docs.google.com/a/student.egsd.net/document/d/14X_TXeFjoxYlCwSD0PFkB3xotaEor5rh_umaRPmNVps/edit


Citations:

- "Roman Entertainment and Games." Roman Entertainment and Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2014.

-  Wally J. Kowalski. "Roman Board Games." Roman Board Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2014.

https://docs.google.com/a/egsd.net/document/d/14X_TXeFjoxYlCwSD0PFkB3xotaEor5rh_umaRPmNVps/edit?usp=sharing