Page 12 - Pompeii n. 12 - The world of money at Pompeii
P. 12
English version
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Comment
These winnings are truly remarkable when one considers the prices of
essential goods. Gambling was essentially done with dice (tesserae) similar
to ours, or with animal ankle bones (tali), which had only four faces.
Two or three at a time were cast by dropping them from a dice-cup
(fritillus) to prevent cheating. Incredible fortunes were lost playing dice, as the
sources point out, so much so that the game was severely limited by legal
regulations, which were however probably mostly ignored, given that
emperors liked gambling too. We know that Augustus lost twenty thousand
sesterces in a single game and that Nero bet no less than four hundred
sesterces every single time he cast a die.
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