The Tavern

The visitor in Melita can't miss the tavern of the Three Cocks (Tres Coculi), built at the entrance of the port in front of the market esplanade, at a few cubits only from the residential quarter. Tired sailors and impoverished legionnaires spend their coins dice while drinking the honey wine whose reputation has spread far away from Melita, the richest or the luckiest ones being led in the dark alcoves by the tavern wenches to relieve them of their last sesterces. As in other parts of the Empire, dice are the most popular game played there, but knucklebones (called astralagoi by the Greeks or tali by the Romans) are also very appreciated. It is not uncommon that an evening ends with a fight because of drunken customers or players accused of cheating.