Note 84: — XXIII.—GAMES. (Table-Case J.)

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