Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Talus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

TA'LUS (ἀστράγαλος). The pastern bone of certain animals, which was employed by the ancients in various games of chance and skill, instead of a dice (tessera). The actual bone was frequently used; but imitations of it were made in other materials, especially of stone and bronze, of which metal the original of the annexed example (Talus/1.1) consists. It had but four flat sides instead of six, the two ends being round, so that the bone would not stand upon either of them. The points were marked upon the four flat sides; 1 and 6 upon two opposite faces; 3 and 4 on the two others; 2 and 5 were not marked; but four tali were used together. The best throw, called Venus, was when each side presented a different number, as 1, 3, 4, 6. The worst one (canis), when all four numbers came up the same. In playing, they were cast from a box (fritillus), or simply from the hand, as exhibited by the wood-cut s. ASTRAGALIZONTES. Suet. Aug. 71. Senec. Apocol. s. f. Cic. Div. i. 13.

2. In the human race, which has no pastern joint, the talus is a small bone under the base of the tibia, just above the os-calcis, which lies rather backward in the foot, and is now called the astragalus in anatomy (Celsus, viii. 1. and 7.); but poets apply the term to the projecting base of the tibia, our ankle. Ov. Met. viii. 808.

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  Talus/1.1