Claudius played at dice on his journeys, having the interior of his carriage so arranged as to prevent the motion from interfering with the game.
From that period the title of courtier and gambler became synonymous. Gaming was the means of securing preferment; it was by gambling that Vitellius opened to himself so grand a career; gaming made him indispensable to Claudius.(33)
(33) Claudio per aleae studium familiaris. Suet.in Vita Vitelli.
Seneca, in his Play on the death of Claudius, represents him as in the lower regions condemned to pick up dice for ever, putting them into a box without a bottom!(34)
(34) Nam quotiens missurus erat resonante fritillo, Utraque subducto fugiebat tessera fundo. Lusus de Morte Claud. Caesar.
Caligula was reproached for having played at dice on the day of his sister's funeral; and Domitian was blamed for gaming from morning to night, and without excepting the festivals of the Roman calendar; but it seems ridiculous to note such improprieties in comparison with their habitual and atrocious crimes.
The terrible and inexorable satirist Juvenal was the contemporary of Domitian and ten other emperors; and the following is his description of the vice in the gaming days of Rome:
'When was the madness of games of chance more furious? Now-a-days, not content with carrying his purse to the gaming table, the gamester conveys his iron chest to the play-room. It is there that, as soon as the gaming instruments are distributed, you witness the most terrible contests. Is it not mere madness to lose one hundred thousand sestertii and refuse a garment to a slave perishing with cold?'(35)
(35) Sat. I. 87.
It seems that the Romans played for ready money, and had not invented that multitude of signs by the aid of which, without being retarded by the weight of gold and silver, modern gamblers can ruin themselves secretly and without display.