XXIII.—GAMES.
(Table-Case J.)
Fig. 242.—Two Women Playing at Knucklebones.
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.
Fig. 243.—Knucklebones and Dice (Nos. 621-3). 1:1.
Fig. 244.—Bronze Dice-Box (No. 624). 4:5.
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).