Liber de Ludo Aleae

28. On Far-reaching Plans, Judgment, and Procedure [in Backgammon]

Of the greatest importance in gambling is foresight and judgment pertaining to many throws, as on the board matters are so arranged that there is a twofold way to our goal, the one that we advance more rapidly, the other that we retard our adversary; we advance more rapidly by occupying better positions, and more quickly, if on the  contrary, we retard our adversary either in order that he may have worse positions and fewer or that he may fall behind in entering the last row. Since, therefore, the ways are as stated, we advance as far in each of them as we can. But we must take care that we apply ourselves to the advance to a greater extent, but not entirely, since this can scarcely be done, seeing that, in order to proceed more quickly, you must take care to be safe from the incursions of your adversary and to impede him. Again  two aims arise, whether you ought to proceed deliberately or, on the other hand, whether you ought to lie in ambush. Therefore, you have already four goals: to proceed easily into the best positions; not to be open to hindrance; to hinder him; and to lie in safe ambush if the occasion should arise to hinder him. But there are two ways to hinder him: either to block him off from his position or from the passage to it; or else to cast out his counters, so that they are forced to return to their original positions.

For you know that there are four tables on the board, each of which contains six points. But we could also foresee hindrance beforehand, so that there are six aims. The obstacle also should be either in several or in special places. The special places are directly opposite and where he is forced to transpose to his disadvantage. But to foresee these things far in advance calls for a certain skill which no art can teach in general. Or rather one can certainly teach it, but nobody can be of such judgment as to acquire it.

Therefore, I shall first teach it by one example, in order that the approach to all these matters may be easier. Suppose that you despair of victory because you are delayed, let us say, by a fourth part of the throws; for it is always necessary to refer the matter to what is left, and although the proportion may be the same, still, the closer it is to the end of the game, the more difference it makes. Therefore, you must consider whether your disadvantage is small and can be  repaired by a change of luck, for then the game is not to be conceded. Again, if you are closer to the end although you can and ought to concede defeat, still you will not do so. Again, if you are farther away from the end but the opponent’s men have already gone far in advance in comparison with your own, you ought not to contemplate such a great step. Therefore, when your hopes are far inferior to his and the game has not proceeded very far, and your men have not progressed to points from which they cannot by any means be extracted since they are not ahead of his, then it is necessary to think about returning them and blocking some point. When you have finished deliberating, it is desirable to find a means to concentrate entirely on this business and try to bring back the men which have advanced. Moreover, this should sometimes be done aggressively, which is both deceptive and dangerous and sometimes slyly (though of course it can be perceived), a procedure which, as it is a matter of greater art, is also sager and more certain.

Having entered in this way upon general considerations, it is necessary to persevere. For this reason one must keep one’s eyes open in this sort of business and especially consider whether one ought to act or not, and, if so, then whether openly or not. This judgment and counsel, this providence, both in details and in general, is deeper than human nature. It is like the prospect of the sky and of infinity. In general, however, higher points are usually blocked with greater advantage, for fear that the adversary may proceed, but the medium ones, like those which they call homes, are dissolved.

30. On Games of Chance Among the Ancients

The ancients had a game of chance which they called tesserae, although alea has usurped the common name of all games which depend on chance. The inventor (as they say) was Palamedes while the Trojan war was in progress. For they sat, according to the testimony of all, around that city for ten years, so that it was devised in order to relieve the  tedium. Those objects are properly called tesserae which others call cubes, with six faces and the same number of points. It was forbidden in the Roman period except during the Saturnalia; whence Martial (Lib. 14.1) “and the slave shakes the dice box without fear of the aedile, since he sees so close at hand the freezing of the ponds”. Nevertheless the cube seems to differ in some way from the tessera according to the statement of Vitruvius. The cube is an object of six sides with equal width of  square plane faces. On whatever side it falls when it is thrown, and in good condition, it has a solid resting place; and the same is true of the tesserae which those players throw who play on a board; and they are called falls or throws among the Greeks. Our authority for this statement is Eustathius16, according to Caelius Calcagninus17, from whom we take this chapter and the following one.

It is agreed that they have six planes, of which number the tessera also consists. The same Eustathius has told us that on each tessera the individual points on the opposite faces should add up the the same number, namely, seven, as six is opposed to one, and five to two, and four to three. This is done with the idea of making it easier to detect falsification, if anyone should make a false die, by duplicating the one and leaving out some other number. This is an especially disgraceful act, particularly if during the play the dice are thrown trickily by sleight of hand while the adversary's attention is distracted.

So it was our duty to add this chapter of review, not so much for the sake of the ancient customs as for giving information by means of which, when understood, something more useful could be derived. For as this was designed to remove  the greatest fraud, it offers an occasion for a lesser one. For those who throw the points they want, by agility of hand, do so in three ways. First, in such a way that one die rides over the  other, or so that one die  rides over the  two others if there are three of them : that is the best method and is called “to ride over” in colloquial speech, generally, “to change the die”. A second method is more deceptive, and consists in letting the die cling to one of the sides or to two sides (of the board) and it is called in colloquial speech “spuntonum”18. The third is not very safe, but is on the other hand very deceptive, when the die is thrown straight with such an impetus and such a number of points exposed above that it is probable that the point which we wish will come uppermost.

In all these matters it is of the utmost help that the cheat should know how to throw the point in a certain position. Thus, it is not only of assistance to know that  the six is opposite to the one and that the other points are in circuit, but also it is necessary to know exactly where, for instance, when the two and five are on the heads, the six and the one are on the sides. So, against all these tricks they have devised the orc from the similitude of the fish. For it seems to devour the tesserae as the orc devours other smaller fish. Persius (Saty. 3) : “not to be deceived by the neck of the  narrow orc”. Pomponius the poet of Bologna : “while contemplating the orc I have lost the little dice”.

But the children inserted nuts into the orc so that the gambling object which he names is not the same as this one, although similar to it. Horace calls this pyx a pyrgus, thereby using a Greek word when he says (Saty. 9, Sermon. 2), “put the tali in the pyrgus”. For they put in it not only tali but also tesserae, it is in constant use at Bologna but not at Milan. Martial calls it a turricula, whence in the Apophoreta on the turricula: “the wicked hand seeks to gather up and cast the tali; if it casts through me, it always produces what it wishes”. This game of tesserae is modified so as to be played with the fritillus (for that is not the pyrgus but a gaming board; you may take it so, I do not contend about words); then you would say that with the board (if that is acceptable) the game is very similar to human life and, as it were, a modified example of what is stated in the Adelphi of Terence (Act 4, Scene 7): “The life of man is like when you play with the tesserae: if the best throw does not turn up, then whatever does turn up by chance, you must use to the best advantage”. Moreover they played with two and with three tesserae; with two, for example, in the  poem of Martial in the Apophoreta (14, 17) : “Here  for me the tessera is counted twice with a six”. On the other hand, three are mentioned in the Greek proverb “either three sixes or else three ones”19.

In our time also, games with the gaming board have become better known with three dice, e.g. sperainum, speraia, and speraionum, from which they also call the board itself sperainum; but in the colloquial language they call it sbaraia and sbaraionum, and similarly the little board sbarainum. Calcagninus thinks that sperainum is derived from “spargere” (to scatter), and sbarainum is that which would scatter. However that may be, all these games would be played with three tesserae; but we use two tesserae in a different way in sbarainum, since we always suppose the third die to be a six.

But sbaraia with three tesserae we call sbaraionum, as well as that  game itself with three tesserae, but in it anyone may double the throws. This is the game of Princes and does not require thought; sbaraia is ingenious; sbarainum occupies an intermediate place; it is more in use because sbaraia is longer but sbaraionum depends mostly on luck. There are three other rather celebrated games with two tesserae, namely, tocadiglium, of which there are two kinds, the smaller, which depends on luck, and the greater, which requires  far-seeing judgment; and there is also canis Martius, and tables [totae tabulae], which are games requiring a moderate degree of skill; but canis Martius requires an outstanding intelligence.

In tables [In totis tabulis] five men are placed in the last point from your right, and two in the first from your left; three in the second from your right and five in the sixth from your left, and your adversary places the same number in the corresponding places directly opposite to these. The most important consideration is to hinder the passage of your adversary’s men and to strike them off. There is also another game which they call Minoretum, and there are two varieties of this, as of tocadiglium, namely, the  greater and the smaller, in the latter it is not possible to reenter with a man which has been struck off, and the game is lost just as in tocadiglia when the pieces have been taken. But in greater tocadiglia, when this happens it is nevertheless up to the player’s judgment whether he wishes to continue.

While the game of tesserae did not exceed the number of three, the game of tali had four, as will be seen below. So Martial says in the Apophoreta : “ I, the tessera, would not wish to be equal in number to the tali, provided only the value of the throw should often be greater for me than for the tali”. Ovid, moreover, tells us that the  tesserae consisted of ivory, although in our times they are made of any kind of bone : “whether  he shall play and throw the ivory numbers with his hand”. In our times I have seen them made of rock crystal with gold points; tesserae are called by our contemporaries Dati because, in ancient times, they were accustomed to say that they played datatim (giving them to each other in turn), whence Plautus in the Curculio, “those slaves of the fine gentlemen who play datatim in the street” and Pomponius, “ when I played datatim with you in bed”, and Quintilian seems also, as that same Calcagninus avers, to have said, “remembering with what die he had gone wrong he returned to the one with which he had played”; but when he speaks about a game of twelve scrupi he seems to have referred the word datus to a  game, but not to a game with dice. The cube (as I have said), they called Monas and sometimes asinus. Moreover, Midas was fortunate in his throws, whence the proverb,20 “Midas, who is the best adviser in tesserae”.

But this was only in one kind of game, very frequent and much practiced, as three sixes in the throw amongst us (2. de arte amand.): for this is superior to all the other numbers because it consists of three similar faces, and the highest at that; but of the beautiful games which are in use, there is only sperainum, sbarainum with two dice, which is without the six.

NOTES

16 Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica (d. A.D. 1193), author of a famous commentary on Homer, where some of the ancient Greek games are discussed.

17 Celio Calcagnini, De talorum ac tesserarum et calculorum ludis.

18 The word means halberd or spear.

19 Meaning: "highest luck or deepest despair."

20 The Midas throw may possibly have been the same as the Venus.