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Roman Dice Tower
Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 9:10 pm
by Karak Norn Clansman
Courtesy of
Bloodbeard, who shared
this piece of news:
Archaeologist Ticia Verveer wrote:A Roman throwing tower found at Vettweiß-Froitz-heim in Germany. The sides have been worked open, so that the players could see the dice rolling. Invented to prevent cheating. Text on the back reads:
utere felix vivas ('use it and live as a lucky man').
4th century
On the front it says
Pictos victos hostis deleta ludite securi ('The Picts have been defeated, the enemy destroyed, play carefree').
The text refers to a Roman victory over the Picts in Scotland, north of Roman Britannia.
At LVR Museum, Bonn, Germany
http://www.landesmuseum-bonn.lvr.de/en/startseite.html
https://www.wissenschaft.de/magazin/wei ... im-museum/
Re: Roman Dice Tower
Posted: Fri May 25, 2018 8:24 pm
by SpellArcher
Karak Norn Clansman wrote:The Picts have been defeated,
Karak Norn Clansman wrote:Germany
Shows the internationalism of the Empire I guess. At one point holding off the Painted People would have been the job of the forces on Hadrian's Wall but things were more fluid by the C4th I suppose.
Re: Roman Dice Tower
Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 11:48 am
by Luna Guardian
I saw that! Thought that it was a cheese grater at first
Re: Roman Dice Tower
Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 3:15 pm
by Elithmar
I'm most interested in the grammar.
It's clearly a lot less tidy and correct than in textbooks or classical authors. I wonder if it's just heavily abbreviated, or whether changes in Latin by the 4th century are somewhat responsible. I wonder what form of Latin they were actually speaking then.
Fairly boring thoughts, I'll admit.
Re: Roman Dice Tower
Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 3:35 pm
by Shannar, Sealord
Don't forget the effects of Latin as a 2nd language