⁂ The ring of Luned rendered the wearer invisible so long as the stone of it was concealed.
13. The Chessboard of Gwenddolen. When the men were placed upon it, they played of themselves. The board was of gold, and the men silver.--Welsh Romance.
Thirteen Unlucky. It is said that it is unlucky for thirteen persons to sit down to dinner at the same table, because one of the number will die before the year is out. This silly superstition is based on the “Last Supper,” when Christ and His twelve disciples sat at meat together. Jesus was crucified; and Judas Iscariot hanged himself.
Thirty (The). So the Spartan senate established by Lycurgos was called.
Similarly, the Venetian senate was called “The Forty.”
Thirty Tyrants (The). So the governors, appointed by Lysander, the Spartan, over Athens, were called (B.C. 404). They continued in power only eight months, when Thrasybūlos deposed them and restored the republic.
“The Thirty” put more people to death in eight months of peace, than the enemy had done in a war of thirty years.--Xenophon.
Thirty Tyrants of Rome (The), a fanciful name, applied by Trebellius Pollio, to a set of adventurers who tried to make themselves masters of Rome at sundry times between A.D. 260 and 267.
The number was not thirty, and the analogy between them and “The Thirty Tyrants of Athens” is scarcely perceptible.
Thirty Years’ War (The), a series of wars between the Protestants and Catholics of Germany, terminated by the “Peace of Westphalia.” The war arose thus: The emperor of Austria interfered in the struggle between the Protestants and Catholics, by depriving the Protestants of Bohemia of their religious privileges; in consequence of which the Protestants flew to arms. After the contest had been going on for some years, Richelieu joined the Protestants (1635), not from any love of their cause, but solely to humiliate Austria and Spain (1618-1648).