Roman playing at mora Rome Italy hand game ancient Greek times entertainment recreation popular italian men man
Illustrated travels a record of discovery geography and adventure edited by h w bates assistant secretary of the royal geographical society with engravings from original drawings by celebrated artists cassell petter and & galpin London paris new york. While there are many variations of Morra, most forms can be played with two, three or more players. In the most popular version, both players throw out a single hand, each showing zero to five fingers, and call out loud their guess at what the sum of all fingers shown will be. If one player guesses the sum, that player earns one point. The first player to reach three points wins the game. In another version one person is designated the "odds" player while the other is labeled "evens". Players hold one hand out in front of them and count together to three (sometimes chanting "Once, twice, thrice, SHOOT!" or "One, two, three, SHOOT!"). On three (or "shoot"), both players hold out either one or two fingers. If the sum of fingers shown by both players is an even number ( two or four) then the "evens" player wins; otherwise the "odds" player is the winner. Since there are two possible ways to add up to three, both players have an equal chance of winning. Some variants of Morra involve money, with the winner earning a number of dollars equal to the sum of fingers displayed. Morra was known to the ancient Romans and is popular around the world, especially in Italy. In the Bible, it may have been referred to as "casting lots". In ancient Rome, it was called micatio, and playing it was referred to as "micare digitis"; literally, "to flash with the fingers". As time passed, the name became Morra, a corruption of the verb "micare". The game was so common in ancient Rome that there was a proverb used to denote an honest person which made reference to it: "dignus est quicum in tenebris mices", literally, "he is a worthy man with whom you could play micatio in the dark". Micatio became so common that it came to be used
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