University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
GAMING AMONG THE ANCIENT ROMAN EMPERORS.

IN spite of the laws enacted against gaming, the court of the Emperor Augustus was greatly addicted to that vice, and gave it additional stimulus among the nation. Although, however, he was passionately fond of gambling, and made light of the imputation on his character,[25] it appears that in frequenting the gambling table he had other motives besides mere cupidity. Writing to his daughter he said, `I send you a sum with which I should have gratified my companions, if they had wished to play at dice or odds and evens.' On another occasion he wrote to Tiberius: — `If I had exacted my winnings during the festival of Minerva; if I had not lavished my money on all sides; instead

of losing twenty thousand sestercii [about £1000], I should have gained one hundred and fifty thousand [£7500]. I prefer it thus, however; for my bounty should win me immense glory.'[26]

This gambling propensity subjected Augustus to the lash of popular epigrams; among the rest, the following:

But although a satirist by profession, the sleek courtier Horace spared the emperor's vice, contenting himself with only declaring that play was forbidden.[27] The two following verses of his, usually applied to the effects of gaming, really refer only to *raillery.

He, however, has recorded the curious fact of an old Roman gambler, who was always attended

by a slave, to pick up his dice for him and put them in the box.[29] Doubtless, Horace would have lashed the vice of gambling had it not been the `habitual sin' of his courtly patrons.

It seems that Augustus not only gambled to excess, but that he gloried in the character of a gamester. Of himself he says, `Between meals we played like old crones both yesterday and today.'[30]

When he had no regular players near him, he would play with children at dice, at nuts, or bones. It has been suggested that this emperor gave in to the indulgence of gambling in order to stifle his remorse. If his object in encouraging this vice was to make people forget his proscriptions and to create a diversion in his favour, the artifice may be considered equal to any of the political ruses of this astute ruler, whose false virtues were for a long time vaunted only through ignorance, or in order to flatter his imitators.

The passion of gambling was transmitted, with the empire, to the family of the Cæsars. At the gaming table Caligula stooped even to falsehood

and perjury. It was whilst gambling that he conceived his most diabolical projects; when the game was against him he would quit the table abruptly, and then, monster as he was, satiated with rapine, would roam about his palace venting his displeasure.

One day, in such a humour, he caught a glimpse of two Roman knights; he had them arrested and confiscated their property. Then returning to the gaming table, he exultingly exclaimed that he had never made a better throw![31] On another occasion, after having condemned to death several Gauls of great opulence, he immediately went back to his gambling companions and said: — `I pity you when I see you lose a few sestertii, whilst, with a stroke of the pen, I have just won six hundred millions.'[32]

The Emperor Claudius played like an imbecile, and Nero like a madman. The former would send for the persons whom he had executed the day before, to play with him; and the latter, lavishing the treasures of the public exchequer, would stake four hundred thousand sestertii (£20,000) on a single throw of the dice.

Claudius played at dice on his journeys, having the interior of his carriage so arranged as to prevent the motion from interfering with the game.

From that period the title of courtier and gambler became synonymous. Gaming was the means of securing preferment; it was by gambling that Vitellius opened to himself so grand a career; gaming made him indispensable to Claudius.[33]

Seneca, in his Play on the death of Claudius, represents him as in the lower regions condemned to pick up dice for ever, putting them into a box without a bottom![34]

Caligula was reproached for having played at dice on the day of his sister's funeral; and Domitian was blamed for gaming from morning to night, and without excepting the festivals of the Roman calendar; but it seems ridiculous to note such improprieties in comparison with their habitual and atrocious crimes.

The terrible and inexorable satirist Juvenal was the contemporary of Domitian and ten other

emperors; and the following is his description of the vice in the gaming days of Rome:

`When was the madness of games of chance more furious? Now-a-days, not content with carrying his purse to the gaming table, the gamester conveys his iron chest to the play-room. It is there that, as soon as the gaming instruments are distributed, you witness the most terrible contests. Is it not mere madness to lose one hundred thousand sestertii and refuse a garment to a slave perishing with cold?'[35]

It seems that the Romans played for ready money, and had not invented that multitude of signs by the aid of which, without being retarded by the weight of gold and silver, modern gamblers can ruin themselves secretly and without display.

The rage for gambling spread over the Roman provinces, and among barbarous nations who had never been so much addicted to the vice as after they had the misfortune to mingle with the Romans.

The evil continued to increase, stimulated by imperial example. The day on which Didius Julianus was proclaimed Emperor, he walked over

the dead and bloody body of Pertinax, and began to play at dice in the next room.[36]

At the end of the fourth century, the following state of things at Rome is described by Gibbon, quoting from Ammianus Marcellinus:

`Another method of introduction into the houses and society of the “great,&” is derived from the profession of gaming; or, as it is more politely styled, of play. The confederates are united by a strict and indissoluble bond of friendship, or rather of conspiracy; a superior degree of skill in the “tessarian&” art, is a sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of that sublime science who, in a supper or assembly, is placed below a magistrate, displays in his countenance the surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when he was refused the prætorship by the votes of a capricious people.'[37]

Finally, at the epoch when Constantine abandoned Rome never to return, every inhabitant of that city, down to the populace, was addicted to gambling.