BACKGAMMON AMONG THE AZTECS. 493 



of those eminent amateurs, the old Count de Trictrac and the venerable 

 Abbe du Cornet, to whose teaching history records that Miss Becky- 

 Sharp ascribed the proficiency at backgammon which made her society 

 so agreeable to Sir Pitt at Queen's Crawley. 



It is not known so exactly what manner of backgammon the Greeks 

 played in earlier ages ; but there are various passages to prove that, 

 when they talk of dice-playing, they often mean not mere hazard, but 

 some game of the backgammon sort, where the throws of the dice are 

 turned to account by skillful moving of pieces. Thus Plato says that, 

 as in casting dice, we ought to arrange our affairs according to the 

 throws we get, as reason shall declare best ; and Plutarch, further mor- 

 alizing, remarks that Plato compares life to dicing (/cf/Sem), where one 

 must not only get good throws, but know how to use them skillfully 

 when one has got them. So with Plutarch's story of Parysatis, mother 

 of Artaxerxes. She was " awful at dice" [deivi) Kv(3eveiv), and, " play- 

 ing her game carefully," won from the king the eunuch Mesabates, who 

 had cut off the head and hand of Cyrus ; having got him, she had him 

 flayed alive and his skin stretched. This episode of old Persian history 

 is noteworthy in the history of the game, because Persian backgammon, 

 which they call naixl, is much like the European form of the game, 

 which, it has not been unreasonably guessed, may itself have come 

 from Persia. This nard is popular in the East, and orthodox Moslems 

 have seen in the fateful throws of the dice a recognition of the decrees 

 of Allah, that fall sometimes for a man and sometimes against him. It 

 is, said one, a nobler game than chess, for the backgammon -player ac- 

 knowledges predestination and the divine will, but the chess-player de- 

 nies them like a dissenter. Not to lose ourselves in speculations on the 

 Oriental origin of backgammon, at any rate it was from Rome that it 

 spread over Europe, carrying its Latin name of tahiilm with it in French 

 and English tables. This word has dropped out of our use since the 

 Elizabethan period, but an instance of it may be cited in a couple of 

 lines, conveying another little sermon on backgammon, which the Eng- 

 lish author no doubt borrowed from the Latin of Terence, even as he 

 had copied it from the Greek of Menander : 



Man's life's a game of tables^ and he may 

 Mend his bad fortune by his wiser play. 



There is an idea which readily presents itself as to how backgammon 

 came to be invented, namely, that the draughts were originally mere 

 counters^ such as little stones, shifted on a calculating board to reckon 

 up the successive throws, and that it was an afterthought to allow skill 

 in the choice of moves. This guess fits well enough with the classic 

 draught being described as a stone, tpr](pog, calx or calculus, while in 

 Germany, though now made of wood, it still keeps its old name of 

 stein. Also the playing board on which the stones were moved shares 

 the name of the calculating board, a/3af, abacus. But if the classical 



