In the film «Spartacus» (Kirk Douglas, 1960), during a bath scene at 2h07m, one can see what clearly is a Backgammon set on a bench, right beside Caesar.
Considering that the scene probably represents a period around 50 B.C., is it known that Backgammon was played at that time in Rome?
While old, we can pretty conclusively say that Backgammon itself was never played by the Romans. Backgammon is a relatively recent iteration belonging to the Tables family of games, the oldest within the family that could be described as Backgammon is τάβλι (Tables, which is conveniently where the family gets it's name), dating from c. 476–491 CE [1].
We do have record of Romans playing another game within the family called XII scripta (12 marks)[2], or more formally Ludus duodecim scriptorum (The game of 12 writings). However, the earliest known mention of XII scripta was in Ovid's Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), which dates to somewhere between 1 BCE and 2 CE, so it may not have been around ~50 years earlier.
XII scripta almost certainly developed out of the Egyptian game Senet, which existed at least as long ago as the Third Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2686–2613 BCE)[3], so there is plenty of potential for Caesar to have been playing a game within the same family as Backgammon.
All that said, while Spartacus is surprisingly accurate for what is essentially an action movie, they most likely spent very little time on what board game Caesar may have been playing.
[1]: Austin, R. (1934). Zeno's game of τάβλη (A.P. ix. 482). The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 54(2), 202-205. doi:10.2307/626864
[2]:
Austin, R. (1935). Roman Board Games. II. Greece and Rome, 4(11), 76-82. doi:10.1017/S0017383500003119
[3]: Finkel, Irving L. "Ancient board games in perspective." British Museum Colloquium. 2007
While it's less likely that modern-looking backgammon sets existed in that time frame, the game of backgammon has its origins much earlier -- it's believed to be as much as 5000 years old, likely the oldest game still played.
Like all widely played and long-lived games, backgammon has evolved a good bit over such a long life; other modern games are also derived from it, including pachisi (also pretty old).
Worth recalling, however, that Spartacus wasn't primarily intended as a historically accurate depiction of Rome, but as an action movie, a vehicle for Kirk Douglas, with the gladiatorial games of Rome as its setting -- and the grandeur of the film would not be diminished (IMO) even if a much newer game (like, say, modern chess) had been depicted instead of backgammon or a close ancestor.
A game with the same board and pieces, Tabula, was played in Rome in the fifth century. It derived from the "Game of Twelve Lines", played around year 0.
From Wikipedia:
Tάβλι (Tavli), i.e. tabula meaning 'table' or 'board' in Byzantine Greek, is the oldest game with rules known to be nearly identical to backgammon. It is described in an epigram of Byzantine Emperor Zeno (AD 476–491).[20]
The board was the same, with 24 points, 12 on each side. Like today, each player had 15 men and used cubical dice with sides numbered one to six. [20]
The τάβλι of Zeno's time is believed to be a direct descendant of the earlier Roman Ludus duodecim scriptorum ('Game of Twelve Lines') with the board's middle row of points removed, and only the two outer rows remaining.[21] Duodecim scriptorum used a board with three rows of 12 points each, with the 15 men being moved in opposing directions by the two players across three rows according to the roll of the three cubical dice.[20][21] Little specific text about the play of Duodecim scriptorum has survived;[24] it may have been related to the older Ancient Greek dice game Kubeia. The earliest known mention of the game is in Ovid's Ars Amatoria ('The Art of Love'), written between 1 BC and 8 AD. In Roman times, this game was also known as Alea, and a likely apocryphal Latin story linked this name, and the game, to a Trojan soldier named Alea.[25][26]
Wikipedia also includes more history of the evolution of tabula from other race games, but that is off topic for the question at hand.
Wikipedia's citations:
20: Austin, Roland G (1934). "Zeno's Game of τάβλη". The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 54 (2): 202–205. doi:10.2307/626864. JSTOR 626864.
21: Austin, Roland G. (February 1935). "Roman Board Games. II". Greece & Rome. 4 (11): 76–82. doi:10.1017/s0017383500003119.
24: Austin, Roland G. (October 1934). "Roman Board Games. I". Greece & Rome. 4 (10): 24–34. doi:10.1017/s0017383500002941.
25: Finkel, Irving L. "Ancient board games in perspective." British Museum Colloquium. 2007. p. 224
26: Jacoby, Oswald, and John R. Crawford. The backgammon book. Viking Pr, 1976.
