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It is confidently asserted by the writers of the Eighteenth
century, and this, that the ancient Greeks and Romans were totally
unacquainted with chess, but a Roman edict of 115. B.C., specially
exempting "Chess and Draughts" from prohibition passes
unobserved by all the writers; and might have materially qualified
their perhaps too hasty and ill-matured conclusions, and have
suggested further inquiry into the nature of the sedentary games
and amusements practiced and permitted by the Romans.

The Roman edict mentioned by Mr. W. B. Donne, in his
biographical sketch of Ahenholarbus, 842, has evidently escaped the
observation of all writers on the game. Chess and Draughts are
specially exempted in it from the list of prohibited games of
chance under date B.C. 115. The Hon. Daines Barrington 1787,
Sir F. Madden 1832, Herbert Coleridge, Esq., 1854, and Professor
Duncan Forbes 1860 are prominent among those who confidently
assert that the Romans as well as the ancient Greeks were quite
unacquainted with the game of chess, at least, says Coleridge,
without giving any reason for his qualification, before the time of
Hadrian. These writers having apparently satisfied themselves
that the Romans as well as the Greeks played a game with pebbles,
assume therefore that they knew not chess, but might have known
a game something like Draughts. Here in the edict, however,
Chess and Draughts are both mentioned inferring a recognized
distinction between the two. It seems reasonable to assume that
the writers would have paused and have searched a little deeper
into the nature of the sedentary games which the Romans knew