How to pronounce“latrunculi”in English

Latrunculi didn’t survive the fall of the Roman Empire, but it did probably evolve into an equally mysterious Celtic game called Fidchell.

But Latrunculi isn’t the oldest game with jumping game pieces.

We think that a game of Latrunculi starts with players alternately placing pieces on an empty board.

The poet Ovid and another anonymous writer both described Latrunculi, albeit in a fairly lyrical fashion.

But there’s a silver lining, because it seems to have evolved directly into another game we have more information on: Latrunculi.

It fell out of popularity in the British Isles around 1000 CE, and, like Latrunculi, its rules were lost to time.