Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

ALEA. ALIPTAE. 75
gambler. Playing with tali or tessesrae was gene- ALEAIA ('ANEeta), a festival celebrated to the
rally understood; because these were by far the honour of Athena Alea at Tegea with gamnes and
most common games of chance among the Romans. contests, of which we find mention in inscriptions.
[TALUS; TESSERaA.] (Paus. viii. 47, ~ 3; Krause, Die Gymnastik u.
Gaming was considered disreputable at Rome; Agonistik d. Hellenen, pp. 734-736; K. F. Herand hence aleator was used as a term of reproach. mann, Lelrbnuch d. gottesdienstlichen Alterthiimer d.
(Cic. in Cat. ii. 10, ad Att. xiv. 5.) It was also Griechen, ~ 51, n. 11; comp. HALOTIA.)
forbidden at Rome by special laws, during the ALI'CULA (hAAsL or SAAXS), an upper dress,
times of the republic, and under the emperors which was, in all probability, identical with the
(retita legibszs alea). (Hor. Carrn. iii. 24. 58; Cic. chlamys, although Hesychius explains it as a kind
Philip. ii. 23; Ov. Trist. ii. 470, &c., Dig. 11. of chiton (Euphor. Fr. 112, ao. Meineke, Anal.
tit. 5.) Wve have, however, no express inform- Alex. p. 137; Callim. Fs. 149, aup. Nacke, Opusc.
ation as to the time when these laws were en- vol. ii. p. 86; Hesych. s. v.; Suid. s. v. kAAcKa
acted or the exact provisions which they contained. and Evs,7e-'; Miller, Arceh. d. Kinst, ~ 337, n. 6;
There are three laws mentioned in the Digest Martial, xii. 83.) [P. S.]
(I. c.) forbidding gambling, the Leges Titia, Pub- ALIMENTA'RII PUERI ET PUELLAE.
licia, and Cornelia, and likewise a senatus con- In the Roman republic, the poorer citizens were assultum, and the praetor's edictum. At what time sisted bypublic distributions of corn, oil, and money,
the two former laws were passed is quite uncer- which were called congiaria. [CONGIARIUM.]
tain; but the Lex Cornelia was probably one of These distributions were not made at stated periods,
the laws of the dictator Sulla, who, we know, made nor to any but grown-up inhabitants of Rome. The
several enactments to check the extravagance and Emperor Nerva was the first who extended them to
expense of private persons. [SuMTvs.] Some children, and Trajan appointed them to be made
writers infer from a passage of Plautus (1Mil. every month, both to orphans and to the children
Glor. ii. 2. 9) that gaining must have been for- of poor parents. The children who received them
bidden by law in his time; but the lex talaria in were called pueri et puellae alimnentzarii, and also
this passage seems rather to refer to the laws of the (from the emperor) pueri puallaeque Ulpiani; and
game than to any public enactment. Some modern the officers who administered the institution were
writers, however, read lex alearia in this passage. called quaestores pecunicae alimentariae, quaestores
The only kinds of gaming allowed by the law alizentorum, psrocuratores alimentornz, or praefecti
were, first, playing at table for the different articles ali7menltorumi.
of food, and playing for money at games of The fragments of an interesting record of an instrength, such as hurling the javelin, running, stitution of this kind by Trajan have been found
jumping, boxing, &c. (Dig. 1. e.) Those who were at Velleia, near Placentia, from which we learn
convicted of gaming were condemned to pay four the sums which were thus distributed, and the
times the sum they had staked (Pseudo-Ascon. in means by which the money was raised. A
Cic. Div. ~ 24. p. 110. ed. Orelli), and became in- similar institution was founded by the younger
farmes in consequence. We know that iqSfamia Pliny, at Comuma. (Plin. E]pist. vii. 18, i. 8; and
was frequently a consequence of a judicial decision the inscription in Orelli, 1172.) Trajan's benevo[INFAMIA]; and we may infer that it was in this lent plans were carried on upon a larger scale by
case from the expression of Cicero. (" Hominem Hadrian and the Antonines. Under Commodus
lege, quae est de alea, condemnatum, in integrunz and Pertinax the distribution ceased. In the reign
restituit," Cic. Pzil. ii. 23.) Justinian forbade all of Alexander Severus, we again meet with alisengaining both in public and in private. (Cod. 3. tit. tariipueri and puellae, who were calledillasMnaeani,
43.) Games of chance were, however, tolerated in in honour of the emperor's mother. We learn,
the month of December at the Saturnalia, which was from a decree of Hadrian (Ulp. in Dig. 34. tit. 1.
a period of general relaxation (Mart. iv. 14, v. 84; s. 14), that boys enjoyed the benefits of this inGell. xviii. 13; Suet. Aug. 71); and among the stitution up to their eighteenth, and girls up to
Greeks, as well as the Romans, public opinion their fourteenth year; and, from an inscription
allowed old men to amuse themselves in this (Fabretti, 235, 619), that a boy four years and
manner. (Eurip. Red. 67; Cic. Seneclt. 16.) seven months old received nine times the ordiUnder the empire gambling was carried to a great nary monthly distribution of corn. (Aurel. Vict.
height, and the laws were probably little more Epit. xii. 4; Capitolin. Ant. Pi. 8, il. Aur.
than nominal. Many of the early emperors, 26, Pert. 9; Spart. Had. 7; Lamprid. Sev.
Augustus, Caligula, Claudius, Vitellius, and Do- Alex. 57; Orelli, Insce. 3364, 3365; Fabretti,
mitian, were very fond of gaming, and set but an 234, 617; Rasche, Lex. Unsiv. Rei Num. s. v.
evil example to their subjects in this matter. Tutda Italiae; Eckhel, Doet. Num. Vet. vol. vi.
(Suet. Aug. 70, 71; Dion Cass. lix. 22; Siuet. p. 408; F. A. Wolf, Von einer milden Stisfiung
Cal. 41, Claud. 33; Dion Cass. lx. 2; Suet. Domn. Trajans.) [P. S.]
21.) Professed gamesters made a regular study of ALI'PILUS, a slave, who attended on bathers,
their art; and there were treatises on the subject, to remove the superfluous hair from their bodies.
among which was a book written by the emperor (Sen. Ep. 56; Pignor. de Serv. 42.). [P. S.]
Claudius. (Ov. Trist. ii. 471; Suet. Claud. 33.) ALIPTAE (&Aeilrmal) among the Greeks,
Alea sometimes denotes the implement used in were persons who anointed the bodies of the
playing, as in the phrase jacta alea est, " the die athletae, preparatory to their entering the palaesis cast," uttered by Julius Caesar, immediately tra. The chief object of this anointing was to close
before he crossed the Rubicon (Suet. Jul. 32); and the pores of the body, in order to prevent excessive
it is often used for chance, or uncertainty in gene- perspiration, and the weakness consequent thereon.
ral. (Hor. Carm. ii. 1. 6; Cic. Div. ii. 15.) Re- To effect this object, the oil was not simply spread
specting the enactments against gambling, see over the surface of the body, but also well rubbed
Rein, Crisninalreclt desr tlnzer, p. 833. into the skin. The oil was mixed with fine