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p548 Fritillusa

Article by James Yates, M.A., F.R.S.,
on p548 of

William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.:
A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.

FRITILLUS (φιμός), a dice-box of a cylindrical form,b and therefore called also turricula (Mart. XIV.16), or pyrgus (Sidon. Epist. VIII.12), and formed with parallel indentations (gradus) on the inside, so as to make a rattling noise when the dice were shaken in it (Mart. IV.14; XIV.1; Hor. Sat. II.7.17, who uses the Greek form phimus.) (Becker, Gallus, vol. II p222.)

Thayer's Notes:

b General Note: Fritillus has given us the word fritillary, with two different meanings, for two different reasons:

• A family of attractive small nodding bulb plants, named from one of its members, Fritillaria meleagris, unusual for a plant in that it has checkered markings (see here for a good photo). Now look at this good photo of a fritillus, an actual Roman dice tower, to see why; and while you're looking, why do you think the dice box was made that way?

• A family of hyperactive butterflies: they flutter like dice in a fritillus. In French by the way, to flutter is frétiller. This etymology is not as certain as the first: some sources say it too is because of the markings; see this photo of a typical fritillary.

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b cylindrical form: Here are two typical shapes from Roman Britain, which you should visualize as about 5 to 10 cm tall:

From John Ward, The Roman Era in Britain, chapter 9, Pottery.

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c Sidon. Epist. VIII.12: This letter doesn't seem to be online yet anywhere, but by a very odd coincidence, each of the two sole letters of Sidonius Apollinaris currently online mentions dice, and the first one mentions dice boxes. Both can be found on the same small page in English translation.

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