sh Museum. An Egyptian vase also shows a lion and an
antelope playing at draughts, with five men each, the lion making the
winning move and seizing the bag or purse that contains the stakes.
Plato ascribes the invention of the game of [Greek: pessoi], or
draughts, to Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus, and Homer
represents Penelope's suitors as playing it (_Odyss._ i. 107). In one
form of the game as played by the Greeks there were 25 squares, and each
player had 5 men which were probably moved along the lines. In another
there were 4 men and 16 squares with a "sacred enclosure," a square of
the same size as the others, marked in the exact centre and bisected by
one of the horizontal lines, which was known as the "sacred line." From
the incident in the game of a piece hemmed in on this line by a rival
piece having to be pushed forward as a last resort, arose the phrase "to
move the man from the sacred line" as synonymous with being hard
pressed. This and other phrases based on incidents in the game testify
to the vogue the game enjoyed in ancient Greece. The Roman game of
_Latrunculi_ was similar, but there were officers (kings in modern
draughts) as well as men. When a player's pieces were all hemmed in he
was stale-mated, to use a chess phrase (_ad incitas redactus est_), and
lost the game. Other explanations of this phrase are, however, given
(see _Les Jeux des anciens_, by Becq de Fouquieres). The fullest account
of the Roman game is to be found in the _De laude Pisonis_, written by
an anonymous contemporary of Nero (see CALPURNIUS, TITUS). Unfortunately
the texts are full of obscurities, so that it is difficult to make any
definite statements as to how the game was played.

As early as the 11th century some form of the game was practised by the
Norsemen, for in the Icelandic saga of Grettir the Strong the board and
men are mentioned more than once.

The history of the modern forms of the game starts with _El Ingenio o
juego de marro, de punto o damas_, published by Torquemada at Valencia
in 1547. Another Spaniard, Juan Garcia Canalejas, is said to have
published in 1610 the first edition of his work, a better-known edition
of which appeared in 1650. The third Spanish classic, that of Joseph
Carlos Garcez, was printed in Madrid in 1684. It is noteworthy that in
an illustration in Garcez's book the pieces depicted resemble somewhat
some of those used by the Egyptians, and are not unlike the pawns used
in chess.