A complete dictionary of the Greek and Roman antiquities explaining the obscure places in classic authors and ancient historians relating to the religion, mythology, history, geography and chronology of the ancient Greeks and Romans, their ... rites and customs, laws, polity, arts and engines of war : also an account of their navigations, arts and sciences and the inventors of them : with the lives and opinions of their philosophers / compiled originally in French ... by Monsieur Danet ; made English, with the addition of very useful mapps.

TALARIUS LUDAS;

Dice-playing; Indeed, we have no proper Term whereby to express this Play in English; but 'tis certain, it was performed with a sort of Gold or Ivory Dice, which they shook as we do in a kind of a Box, before they threw them: There was this difference between them and ours, that whereas

our Dice have six Squares, because they are Cu∣bical, those had but four, for they had but two opposite sides for the six which they ought to have, and they were conically shap'd. They made use of them for Divination, as well as Playing; and they concluded on a good or evil Augury, according to what came up. As they usu∣ally threw four of them at a time, the best Chance was when four different Sides came up, for these Squares they called by the Name of some Animals, as the Dog, Vulture, Basilisk, &c. or of some Deity, as Venus, Hercules, &c. Some Authors have been of Opinion, that they were marked with the Forms of Animals, or the I∣mages of those Gods, and not with Numbers or Dots as our Dice are: But if that be true, those Figures or Images must have been applied each of them to signifie some particular Num∣ber; for 'tis certain, that if two of the opposite Sides signified one, and the other six; and that also of the two other opposite ones, one was ac∣counted three, and the other four: This Game was very ancient, seeing the Lovers of Penelope play'd at it in the Temple of Minerva, for it was a Custom to play in the Temples; 'twas a Game used by old Men at Rome, as Augustus him∣self says, but among the Grecians Childrens Play, as appears by the Description of an excel∣lent Picture of Policletus, by Apollodorus in Pliny, who there makes Cupid play with Ganimede; and by Diogenes Laertius, who says, the Ephesi∣ans laughed at Heraclitus, because he play'd with the Children.