First book of Adam and eve probable that the fall of Greece was due to the license that prevailed as to gaming, and consequently to all other and lesser forms of dissipation and corruption. Philip of Macedon was planning the battle of Cheronea at the very time when dicing had reached its most shameful height in Athens. Public associations existed, not for the purpose of defending Greece against her foes, but for the encouragement of the basest passions that surge in the human breast. Both Philip and Alexander knew the value to despotism of vice among the people. Alexander put a fine on those of his courtiers who did not play, for he had a jealous fear of subjects who were engaged in more serious pursuits.
But dice alone did not furnish the implements of gambling. The ancient Greeks had the equivalent of Cross and Pile, and gambled at cocking mains. The Athenian orator, Callistratus, notes the desperation of these practices when he says that the games in which the losers go on doubling their stakes “resemble ever-recurring wars, which terminate only with the extinction of the combatants.”
Lack of self control ordinary extinction
It was a practice of the ancients to put the invention of vicious acts or games upon foreign nations. Thus we have Plutarch’s indignant answers to Herodotus; but no Grecian ever resented the story that dice was first made by Palamedes, at the siege of Troy. Dice were called alsae by the Romans, and there were two kinds, the tali, or four-sided knucklebones, and the tesserarae or six-sided bones. The tali has four sides long-wise, the two ends were not regarded. Up one side there was an ace, or canis; on the opposite side six; on the other two sides four and three. On the tesserarae the numbers were from one to six. But on both sides of alsae or dice the numbers on the upper and lower side would make seven, as now-a-days on dice.
The game was played with three tesserarae and four tali. They were put into a box made into the form of a tower, with a straight neck—wider below than above, called fritillas turris, turricula, orca, etc. This box was shaken, and the dice was thrown upon the gaming board, forus, alvenus, tabulalus oriae. The highest or most fortunate throw was called Venus, or jactus venereus, or basilicas (the King’s throw.) It consisted of three sixes on the tesserarae, and differing numbers, as two alike, on the 88tali. The worst throw, the dog throw, was called in Latin jactus pessimus, or jactus canes. In this throw, the three tesserarae must be aces, and the tali all the same number. The other throws were valued according to the numbers. Cocked dice nullified the throw, as now-a-days. While throwing the dice it was customary to name the desires of the player, and this practice still holds with negroes in their game of craps. Old men were specially fond of the game. Jacta alsa, esto! Let the die be cast! was Cæsar’s cry at the Rubicon when he betrayed the Roman republic. The law prohibited dice-playing, except in the month of December, during the Saturnalia, and the character of gamesters was then as infamous as now, although there was much gambling. The works of Horace, Cicero, Suetonius, Juvenal, Tacitus, Plautus, Varro, Ovid, Pliny, and Paulus, show by direct reference and by metaphor, the familiarity of dice in the public mind, and the evils they involved. Persius, in his satires, speaks of the practice of cogging the dice, and cheating the unwary.
But dice alone did not furnish the implements of gambling. The ancient Greeks had the equivalent of Cross and Pile, and gambled at cocking mains. The Athenian orator, Callistratus, notes the desperation of these practices when he says that the games in which the losers go on doubling their stakes “resemble ever-recurring wars, which terminate only with the extinction of the combatants.”
Lack of self control ordinary extinction
It was a practice of the ancients to put the invention of vicious acts or games upon foreign nations. Thus we have Plutarch’s indignant answers to Herodotus; but no Grecian ever resented the story that dice was first made by Palamedes, at the siege of Troy. Dice were called alsae by the Romans, and there were two kinds, the tali, or four-sided knucklebones, and the tesserarae or six-sided bones. The tali has four sides long-wise, the two ends were not regarded. Up one side there was an ace, or canis; on the opposite side six; on the other two sides four and three. On the tesserarae the numbers were from one to six. But on both sides of alsae or dice the numbers on the upper and lower side would make seven, as now-a-days on dice.
The game was played with three tesserarae and four tali. They were put into a box made into the form of a tower, with a straight neck—wider below than above, called fritillas turris, turricula, orca, etc. This box was shaken, and the dice was thrown upon the gaming board, forus, alvenus, tabulalus oriae. The highest or most fortunate throw was called Venus, or jactus venereus, or basilicas (the King’s throw.) It consisted of three sixes on the tesserarae, and differing numbers, as two alike, on the 88tali. The worst throw, the dog throw, was called in Latin jactus pessimus, or jactus canes. In this throw, the three tesserarae must be aces, and the tali all the same number. The other throws were valued according to the numbers. Cocked dice nullified the throw, as now-a-days. While throwing the dice it was customary to name the desires of the player, and this practice still holds with negroes in their game of craps. Old men were specially fond of the game. Jacta alsa, esto! Let the die be cast! was Cæsar’s cry at the Rubicon when he betrayed the Roman republic. The law prohibited dice-playing, except in the month of December, during the Saturnalia, and the character of gamesters was then as infamous as now, although there was much gambling. The works of Horace, Cicero, Suetonius, Juvenal, Tacitus, Plautus, Varro, Ovid, Pliny, and Paulus, show by direct reference and by metaphor, the familiarity of dice in the public mind, and the evils they involved. Persius, in his satires, speaks of the practice of cogging the dice, and cheating the unwary.
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