Herodotus has a curious story to the effect that the Lydians invented dice, knucklebones, balls, and other playthings to help them to pass a time of famine, by playing and eating on alternate days.⁸¹ Draughts (πεσσοί) are expressly excepted from his list, and were ascribed to the fertile invention of Palamedes at the time of the Trojan war. Games played with knucklebones (small bones forming part of the ankle-joint in cloven-footed animals) may be described first, since they were, as may be judged from the number of ancient knucklebones found (No. 621 in this Case), extremely common. We are told in the Anthology of a boy who gained eighty knucklebones as a writing-prize.⁸² Among women too they were a favourite plaything. The illustration (fig. 242), from a painting on marble found at Resina (the ancient Herculaneum), shows two women engaged at knucklebones. (See also the terracotta group D 161 in the Room of Terracottas, Case 32). This game was called "five-stones" (πεντέλιθοι), a name still given by children to a very similar game. The lexicographer Pollux describes the game thus: "The knucklebones are thrown up into the air, and an attempt is made to catch them on the back of the hand. If you are only partially successful, you have to pick up the knucklebones which have fallen to the ground, without letting fall those already on the hand.... It is, above all, a woman's game."⁸³ This description makes the illustration clear. Each woman has five knucklebones, and the one whose turn it is to play has caught three on the back of her hand; the two which are falling to the ground she would have to pick up without shaking off those already on the hand.

Besides being used in various kinds of games, knucklebones were also employed as dice. The four long faces of the knucklebone differed from one another in form, one being convex, another concave, another nearly flat, and the fourth sinuous and irregular. The values assigned to these sides were: (a) to the flat side (χῖον), 1; (b) the sinuous side (κῷον), 6; (c) the concave (ὕπτιον), 3; (d) the convex (πρηνές), 4. This is the order in which they are shown in fig. 243, from left to right. Astragali thus required no marks of value upon them, since their sides were naturally distinguished. The ordinary cube-shaped dice, marked 1-6 (No. 622) were also widely used by the Greeks and Romans (fig. 243). The usual arrangement of numbers was, as now, 1 opposite 6, 2 opposite 5, and 3 opposite 4,⁸⁴ but other arrangements occur. Some dice are interesting on account of their peculiar form, e.g., the squatting silver figures (No. 623, fig. 204), which are marked with the values 1-6 on different parts of the body. A Roman bronze dice-box is shown in fig. 244 (No. 624). The ordinary materials of dice were ivory, bone, or wood. Of the multifarious ways of playing with dice known to the Greeks and Romans, the one most in vogue may be mentioned. In this three dice were used, and the object was to throw the highest number (πλειστοβολίνδα). The best throw, three sixes, became proverbial. In Aeschylos' Agamemnon the watchman, when he saw the beacon-fire blaze forth which told of Agamemnon's victorious return, exclaimed:——"I'll count my master's fortunes fallen fair, now that my beacon watch has thrown a triple six."⁸⁵ With astragali, on the other hand, the best throw was 1, 3, 4, 6, and was called "the throw of Venus." For this each bone had to present a different face.⁸⁶ The worst throw was the "Dogs," when four aces turned up.⁸⁷

Dice of exceptional form are the twenty-sided one, inscribed with the Greek letters Α to Υ (No. 625), a fourteen-sided one inscribed with Roman numerals (No. 626), and an uninscribed fourteen-sided crystal die from Naukratis. With these may be mentioned the triple teetotum (No. 627) and the four-sided triple die, one side of which has been left plain (No. 628).

Of the rules governing other games, represented here by several pieces, we are entirely ignorant. The plaster pawns (No. 629) found at Panticapaeum (Kertch) in the Crimea, probably belonged to some game analogous to our draughts. An interesting set of pieces is that of the ivory discs (No. 630; fig. 245), which bear on their obverse a design in relief e.g. two Muses and the head of the Sun-god, and on their reverse a number, from 1 to 15, in both Greek and Latin figures, as well as a word descriptive of the design on the obverse. Thus the two illustrated have on their reverse

and

(i.e., VI.—Nine (θ´) Muses—6, and II.—Helios—2) respectively. It seems pretty clearly established that these discs were used as pieces in a game, which probably resembled draughts or backgammon. Fifteen of these pieces have been found together in a child's tomb at Panticapaeum. The game appears to have been popular in the first and second centuries after Christ, and probably had its origin in Alexandria. It seems likely that it bore a resemblance to the Roman game called duodecim scripta ("twelve lines"), played with fifteen pieces on either side. The moves were determined by the throw of the dice, as in our backgammon. Another set of pieces belonging to a game are the label-shaped ivories (No. 631; fig. 245), inscribed on one side with words, often of an abusive character, such as male (e)st ("bad luck"), fur ("thief"), nugator ("trifler"), stumacose ("ill-tempered fellow"), etc., and on the other with numbers. The pieces mentioned have the numbers XXIII, A, II, I, and II A respectively on their reverse sides (see fig. 245). The whole series of numbers on these ivories runs from 1 to 25, and includes in addition 30 and 60; it is noteworthy that the highest numbers have inscriptions of a complimentary character, e.g., felix and benigne. The pieces may have been used in the Roman game called "the game of soldiers" (ludus latrunculorum).⁸⁸

At the top of Cases 57-58 is an oblong marble board (No. 632), inscribed with six words of six letters each. It was found in a tomb near the Porta Portese, Rome. The words are—

"Circus full," "Great shouting," "Doors bursting (?)."

Each word is separated from that opposite it by a flower within a circle. Many such stones are known, always with six words of six letters, so that it seems clear that they were used as boards for a game, possibly the duodecim scripta already mentioned. The pieces used were probably the so-called "contorniates," bronze discs of coin form, with designs in relief on either side within a raised rim and a circular depression. Two examples of these contorniates (in electrotype) are exhibited below the stone board (No. 633). The pieces are of late Imperial date, of about the time of Constantine. Many have subjects closely connected with the circus, a fact which harmonizes well with the inscription on the board described. One of the two exhibited has a head of Alexander and a representation of a chariot race, the other a head of Nero and a water organ (see below, p. 216).

(630) Cf. Röm. Mitt., 1896, p. 238 ff.; Rev. Arch., 4th Series V. (1905), p. 110 ff.; (631) Röm. Mitt., 1896, p. 227 ff.; (632) Cf. Num. Chron. (4th Series), VI., p. 232 ff.; Notizie degli Scavi, 1887, p. 118.

On ancient toys and games generally, see Becq de Fouquières, Les jeux des anciens; Daremberg and Saglio, s.v. Ludus.

81:  Herodot., i. 94.

82:  Anth. Pal. vi. 308:

83:  Pollux, ix. 126 (reading ἐφίσταται and omitting ἤ).

84:  Cf. Anth. Pal. xiv. 8:

85:  Aesch., Agam. 32:

86:  Mart., xiv. 14:

87: Prop., iv. 8, 45 f.:

88: Latro originally meant "a mercenary soldier."