Agathias, or Agathias Scholasticus, lived from ca. 536 until 582 CE in Myrine, Asia Minor, which is now modern Turkey. He was both a poet and historian but is best known for his poetry of which about a hundred have been preserved in the Greek Anthology of which this is one example. The poem speaks of the Roman emperor Zeno (475–481 CE) and provides extraordinary detail about the game of tables, considered a predecessor of modern backgammon.

Agathias used an elegiac distich for this poem. This Greek verse form uses the length of syllables to create a meter. Each pair of two lines has the following sequence of long (—) and short (v) syllables. In this system of meter, the last syllable of the first line may also be short. The semantic and/or rhythmic caesura may occur only in specific locations (|) creating a cadence if this form is repeated for a poem of this length.

The attention this poem received in the literature has concentrated on the game position and the possibilities it affords for reconstructing the game rules. Yet the seemingly repetitious enumeration of the pieces on each field of the board shows off a rich vocabulary and a particularly elegant phrasing. The poem was mostly studied in its Latin translation found in the Palatine Anthology (9,482), which created additional problems of interpretation. For instance, the name δίβος for a specific field on the board was translated in Latin as ‘divus’ but is now accepted to mean the second to last field from the end of the board. Not all parts of the poem are understood — for instance, it is unclear who the Lybian is to whom Agathias is referring at the beginning of the poem — but the game position and its unusual characteristics are mostly agreed upon today.

The English translation aims to capture the intricate meter by using stressed and unstressed vowels to indicate long and short syllables with the caesurae in the same places. It also interprets the names of various fields according to the latest insights in the reconstruction of the game. It foregrounds the poetic qualities of the poem in addition to its historical value.

The position that is described in the poem has been reconstructed by several scholars. The most insightful reconstruction shows a position that can be interpreted with today’s backgammon rules on a board with two rows of twelve playing spaces, as opposed to another Roman version that had three rows of twelve spots. The white pieces move in counter-clockwise direction. With Zeno’s throw of the dice, it shows that the only option for white is to move pieces in such a way that most positions of white will have only one white piece, all other options are blocked by black. In this game, captures can only be made if you land on a position with one piece of the opponent. Positions with more than one piece are blocked. In the poem, a situation now occurs in which black has multiple opportunities to capture white’s pieces while prior to white’s move the position seemed strong as so few fields allowed a capture.

Agathias’s poem is a rare example of a poem from antiquity that allows for a complete reconstruction of a board game position. It has assisted in understanding the history of Duodecim Scripta and Alea, two Roman predecessors of present-day backgammon that have been connected to the time period of both Zeno and Agathias.