d Rome different modes of counting were in vogue. Roman dice
were called _tesserae_ from the Greek word for four, indicative of the
four sides. The Romans were passionate gamblers, especially in the
luxurious days of the Empire, and dicing was a favourite form, though it
was forbidden except during the Saturnalia. The emperor Augustus wrote
in a letter to Suetonius concerning a game that he had played with his
friends: "Whoever threw a _dog_ or a six paid a _denarius_ to the bank
for every die, and whoever threw a _Venus_ (the highest) won
everything." In the houses of the rich the dice-beakers were of carved
ivory and the dice of crystal inlaid with gold. Mark Antony wasted his
time at Alexandria with dicing, while, according to Suetonius, the
emperors Augustus, Nero and Claudius were passionately fond of it, the
last named having written a book on the game. Caligula notoriously
cheated at the game; Domitian played it, and Commodus set apart special
rooms in his palace for it. The emperor Verus, adopted son of Antonine,
is known to have thrown dice whole nights together. Fashionable society
followed the lead of its emperors, and, in spite of the severity of the
laws, fortunes were squandered at the dicing table. Horace derided the
youth of the period, who wasted his time amid the dangers of dicing
instead of taming his charger and giving himself up to the hardships of
the chase. Throwing dice for money was the cause of many special laws in
Rome, according to one of which no suit could be brought by a person who
allowed gambling in his house, even if he had been cheated or assaulted.
Professional gamblers were common, and some of their loaded dice are
preserved in museums. The common public-houses were the resorts of
gamblers, and a fresco is extant showing two quarrelling dicers being
ejected by the indignant host. Virgil, in the _Copa_ generally ascribed
to him, characterizes the spirit of that age in verse, which has been
Englished as follows:--

"What ho! Bring dice and good wine!
Who cares for the morrow?
Live--so calls grinning Death--
Live, for I come to you soon!"

That the barbarians were also given to gaming, whether or not they
learned it from their Roman conquerors, is proved by Tacitus, who states
that the Germans were passionately fond of dicing, so much so, indeed,
that, having lost everything, they would even stake their personal
liberty. Centuries later, during the middle ages, dicing b