Talus
（
ἀστράγαλος). A die used in gambling. The name of a bone
in the hind-leg of cloven-footed animals which articulates with the tibia and helps to form
the ankle-joint. In the language of anatomists it is still called
astragalus; the English name is sometimes “huckle-bone,” but more
commonly “knuckle-bone.” The astragali of sheep and goats, from their
peculiar squareness and smoothness, have been used as playthings from the
earliest times, and have often been found in Greek and Roman tombs, both natural and imitated
in ivory, bronze, glass, and agate (Propert. iii. 24, 13;
Mart.xiv.
14). They were used to play with, prin
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Girl Playing with Tali. (Herculanean painting.)
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cipally by women and children (
Alcib. 2), occasionally by old men
(
de Sen. 16.58).
To play at this game was sometimes called
πεντελιθίζειν,
because five bones or other objects of a similar kind were employed (
Fr. 33M.); and this number is retained among ourselves. This game was
entirely one of skill; and in ancient no less than in modern times it consisted not merely in
catching the five bones on the back of the hand, as shown in the woodcut, but in a great
variety of exercises requiring quickness, agility, and accuracy of sight.
The name was also given to dice (cf. our slang term “the bones”) for
playing games of chance (see
Alea). The length was
greater than the breadth, so that they had four long sides and two pointed ends, one of them
called
κεραία, the other without a name. Of the four long
sides, which alone were marked, two were broader, the others narrower. One of the broad sides
was convex (
πρηνής or
πρανής, the other concave (
ὑπτία); while of the
narrow sides one was flat and called
χῖον, the other
indented. This was called
κῷον, and, as
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Roman Dicebox. (Rich.)
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the rarest was also the luckiest throw, marked 6: the
χῖον was marked 1, the broader sides 3 and 4, so that the numbers 2 and 5 were
wanting. From the difference of their shapes they did not absolutely require to be marked, and
sometimes the pips were dispensed with. It was the under side of the die, not the upper, that
counted, as must be inferred from the fact of the narrowest side giving the highest throw
(Marquardt,
Privatl. 828).
The Greek and Latin names of the numbers were as follows:—1.
Μονάς, εἷς, κύων, Χῖος:
Unio, Volturius, canis; 3.
Τριάς:
Ternio; 4.
Τετράς:
Quaternio; 6.
Ἑξάς, ἑξίτης,
Κῷος:
Senio.
As the bone is broader in one direction than in the other, it was said to fall upright or
prone (
ὀρθὸς ἢ πρηνής,
rectus aut
pronus), according as it rested on a narrow or a broad side.
Two persons played together at this game, using four bones, which they threw up into the
air, or emptied out of a dice-box (
φιμός,
fritillus). The numbers on the four sides of the four bones admitted of thirty-five
different combinations. The lowest throw of all was four aces. But the value of a throw
(
βόλος,
iactus) was not in all cases
the sum of the four numbers turned up. The highest in value was that called
Venus, or
iactus Venereus, in which the numbers cast up were all different (
Mart.xiv. 14), the sum of them being only fourteen. It was by
obtaining this throw that the master of revels (
arbiter bibendi) was
chosen at the drinking-bouts. See Becq de Fouquières,
Les Jeux des
Anciens, 325 foll., and the article
Symposium. Cf. also
Tessera.
