s retire, leaving the two lowest to decide the loser by the
best two in three throws. Should each player win one throw both are said
to be _horse and horse_, and the next throw determines the loser. The
two last casters may also agree to _sudden death_, i.e. a single throw.
_Loaded dice_, i.e. dice weighted slightly on the side of the lowest
number, have been used by swindlers from the very earliest times to the
present day, a fact proved by countless literary allusions. Modern dice
are often rounded at the corners, which are otherwise apt to wear off
irregularly.

_History._--Dice were probably evolved from knucklebones. The antiquary
Thomas Hyde, in his _Syntagma_, records his opinion that the game of
"odd or even," played with pebbles, is nearly coeval with the creation
of man. It is almost impossible to trace clearly the development of dice
as distinguished from knucklebones, on account of the confusing of the
two games by the ancient writers. It is certain, however, that both were
played in times antecedent to those of which we possess any written
records. Sophocles, in a fragment, ascribed their invention to
Palamedes, a Greek, who taught them to his countrymen during the siege
of Troy, and who, according to Pausanias (on Corinth, xx.), made an
offering of them on the altar of the temple of Fortune. Herodotus
(_Clio_) relates that the Lydians, during a period of famine in the days
of King Atys, invented dice, knucklebones and indeed all other games
except chess. The fact that dice have been used throughout the Orient
from time immemorial, as has been proved by excavations from ancient
tombs, seems to point clearly to an Asiatic origin. Dicing is mentioned
as an Indian game in the _Rig-veda_. In its primitive form knucklebones
was essentially a game of skill, played by women and children, while
dice were used for gambling, and it was doubtless the gambling spirit of
the age which was responsible for the derivative form of knucklebones,
in which four sides of the bones received different values, which were
then counted, like dice. Gambling with three, sometimes two, dice
([Greek: kuboi]) was a very popular form of amusement in Greece,
especially with the upper classes, and was an almost invariable
accompaniment to the symposium, or drinking banquet. The dice were cast
from conical beakers, and the highest throw was three sixes, called
_Aphrodite_, while the lowest, three aces, was called the _dog_. Both in
Greece an