§321. Dice.--The Romans had also dice (_tesserae_) precisely like our own. They were made of ivory, stone, or some close-grained wood, and had the sides numbered from one to six. Three were used at a time, thrown from the _fritillus_, as were the knuckle-bones (Fig. 132), but the sides counted that came up. The highest throw was three sixes, the lowest three aces. In ordinary gaming the aim of the player seems to have been to throw a higher number than his opponent, but there were also games played with dice on boards with counters, that must have been something like our backgammon, uniting skill with chance. Little more of these is known than their names, but a board used for some such game is shown in §336 (Fig. 144). If one considers how much space is given in our newspapers to the game of baseball, and how impossible it would be for a person who had never seen a game to get a correct idea of one from the newspaper descriptions only, it will not seem strange that we know so little of Roman games. §322. Public and Private Games.--With the historical development of the Public Games this book has no concern (§2). It is sufficient to say that these free exhibitions, given first in honor of some god or gods at the cost of the state and extended and multiplied for political purposes until all religious significance was lost, had come by the end of the Republic to be the chief pleasure in life for the lower classes in Rome, so that Juvenal declares that the free bread (§286) and the games of the circus were the people's sole desire. Not only were these games free, but when they were given all public business was stopped and all citizens were forced to take a holiday. These holidays became rapidly more and more numerous; by the end of the Republic sixty-six days were taken up by the games, and in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) no less than one hundred and thirty-five days out of the year were thus closed to business.[1] Besides these standing games, others were often given for extraordinary events, and funeral games were common when great men died. These last were not made legal holidays. For our purposes the distinction between public and private games is not important, and all may be classified according to the nature of the exhibitions as, _lūdī scēnicī_, dramatic entertainments given in a theater, _lūdī circēnsēs_, chariot races and other exhibitions given in a circus, and _mūnera gladiātōria_, shows of gladiators usually given in an amphitheater. [Footnote 1: There are sixty holidays annually in Indiana, for example, and this is about the average for the United States.]