his description of
the vice in the gaming days of Rome:

'When was the madness of games of chance more furious? Now-a-days,
not content with carrying his purse to the gaming table, the gamester
conveys his iron chest to the play-room. It is there that, as soon as
the gaming instruments are distributed, you witness the most terrible
contests. Is it not mere madness to lose one hundred thousand sestertii
and refuse a garment to a slave perishing with cold?'(35)

(35) Sat. I. 87.

It seems that the Romans played for ready money, and had not invented
that multitude of signs by the aid of which, without being retarded
by the weight of gold and silver, modern gamblers can ruin themselves
secretly and without display.

The rage for gambling spread over the Roman provinces, and among
barbarous nations who had never been so much addicted to the vice as
after they had the misfortune to mingle with the Romans.

The evil continued to increase, stimulated by imperial example. The day
on which Didius Julianus was proclaimed Emperor, he walked over the
dead and bloody body of Pertinax, and began to play at dice in the next
room.(36)

(36) Dion Cass. _Hist. Rom_. l. lxxiii.

At the end of the fourth century, the following state of things at Rome
is described by Gibbon, quoting from Ammianus Marcellinus:

'Another method of introduction into the houses and society of the
"great," is derived from the profession of gaming; or, as it is more
politely styled, of play. The confederates are united by a strict and
indissoluble bond of friendship, or rather of conspiracy; a superior
degree of skill in the "tessarian" art, is a sure road to wealth
and reputation. A master of that sublime science who, in a supper or
assembly, is placed below a magistrate, displays in his countenance the
surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when he
was refused the praetorship by the votes of a capricious people.'(37)

(37) Amm. Marcellin. lib. XIV. c. vi.

Finally, at the epoch when Constantine abandoned Rome never to return,
every inhabitant of that city, down to the populace, was addicted to
gambling.

CHAPTER V. GAMBLING IN FRANCE IN ALL TIMES.

CHARLES VI. and CHARLES VII.--The early French annals record the deeds
of haughty and idle lords, whose chief occupations were tormenting their
vassals, drinking, fighting, and gaming; for most of them were desperate
gamblers, setting at defiance all the laws enact