The games and entertainment enjoyed by the Romans can be divided into two categories: private games (for the pleasure of children, young people and adults) and public games (provided for the general public by the state or the magistrates).

Many of the games played in private by the Romans greatly resemble those we play today. Children played hide-and-seek, odds and evens, blind man's buff or with hoops and sticks. They had spinning tops, they played knucklebones and built models. Little girls played with dolls made of baked mud, wood, bone or ivory. Some of these were articulated (like the one found in a child's grave in the Early-Christian Necropolis of Tarragona) and with little earthenware cups and pots and pans (tiny kitchen utensils).

The gymnasium formed part of a young person's education in the search for a balance between the mind and the spirit (racing, jumping, discus and javelin throwing, etc.). They played games with balls (made of wool or stitched animal skins and filled with hair or feathers) and many other team games. Music, which was closely linked to religion, was also part of the leisure activities of the Romans.

Adult leisure often consisted of one of these games (knucklebones, dice, etc.), and others on which large amounts of money would often be wagered. They played "noughts-and-crosses" (with the square drawn in the earth, on a paving stone or on a step) and "soldiers" or latrunculi (a kind of combat game similar to chess). But above all they loved the ludi, special days of public games and spectacles. Towards the end of the Republican period there were seventy-seven days of official ludi and by the 4th century there were one hundred and seventy-seven. The greatest number were theatre performances, followed by chariot races held in the Circus and those that took place in the Amphitheatre (gladiator fights, simulated hunts, battles between men and wild animals, etc.).

The ludi were originally associated with religion, but as they grew in number they became a powerful vehicle for maintaining political consensus in the Empire. This is shown by Juvenal's well-known aphorism: panem et circenses ("bread and games"), referring to the intention of keeping the people happy by giving them free wheat and organizing public games, thus avoiding a possible revolution.

We have learned much about the games and performances of Roman times through scenes on carved reliefs, paintings and mosaics. Depictions of ludi are also found on lamps, earthenware and other decorative items and in the literature of the time.