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The Die is Cast." A listener and his wife disagree about what kind of "die" is meant here. It's not a reference to metallurgy — it's a quotation attributed to Julius Caesar.
Interesting. The translation is "The die is cast", singular, not a pair of dice.
No doubt, "The die is cast" is attributed to Julius Caesar. But Julius Caesar's day was well past the Bronze Age. Many bronze statues had been cast hundreds of years before Julius Caesar was born. Bronze statues have been around for about 4,000 years.
The foundry craft dates back to the Bronze Age. Today, the foundry industry uses still the terms, die, mold, die-mold, cast, casting, etc. Many common parts are die cast today. High school class rings are die-cast products.
Casting is a process in which materials in a molten state are poured into a mold where the materials solidify.
A die is a pattern. The die is a mirror of the mold in foundry craft history.
The die is the parent of the casting. The die is a replica of the finish product. In the Bronze Age, a pattern (die) was only used once because the die was destroyed in the process. Much labor and time went into the artwork of making the die. And, until the die was cast, one could go back, alter and refine the die, hence affecting the outcome (the casting). But, once the die is cast, one has passed the point of no return. The valuable painstaking die has been destroyed and no longer exists.
So, just for the record, there were cast bronze pairs of dice in Julius Caesar's day.
Check e-Bay, past auctions, for ancient bronze dice.
Check out the bronze Roman dice, 100 AD, at:
Genuine-Pair-Ancient-Roman-Legendary-Gaming-RARE-BRONZE-DICE
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Pair-Ancient-Roman-Legendary-Gaming-RARE-BRONZE-DICE-ca-100-AD-/400265996673?_trksid=p4340.m185&_trkparms=algo%3DSIC.NPJS%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUA%26otn%3D5%26pmod%3D250918447397%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D5177292977640830204
From 100 AD
Roman-Bronze-Pair-Dice
I would be interested to know if there are national or regional differences in the use of the word die with regard to casting. I worked in the foundry industry, as a patternmaker, for some years, and never, ever, heard die applied to a pattern, regardless of casting method. It always referred to die casting, in which the die, also called a die-mold, is a permanent mold. In that regard, it is my understanding that the birth of die casting was in the early nineteenth century, in the casting of type. Yes, there are casting methods in which the pattern is destroyed, and those in which the mold is destroyed, but, as far as I know it would be self-contradictory for the die to be destroyed in the process. I'm not calling you out on this: if you're right and I'm wrong, I'll have learned something; but so far I have not been able to find any information that confirms your usage, and would appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.
Peter
Here is a question coming from my ignorance of Latin, specifically the latin spoken by Julius Caesar. Even though the word "die" in English has the two meanings being discussed, do these two meanings share the same Latin word? If not, it should not be hard to know exactly what Julius Caesar said and meant when he said it.
Just to confuse matters, it appears that the Julius spoke the sentence in Greek; but no, there's no doubt that the reference is to gambling. I've seen an alternate translation of the Greek, directly to English, as something like "Let the game be ventured." It rather takes the some of the sense of fate and finality out of the English version, but it shows the gambling aspect.
The Latin word is not ambiguous. Here is an authoritative Latin word reference:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=alea&la=la#lexicon
"Die" is the singular of "Dice".
I think the meaning is much simpler than you are imagining- as in 'the die (one dice) has been cast (thrown) and the way it falls cannot be changed.'
A quick Goodle confirms this - eloquent explanation at http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxthedie.html
And even Captain Kirk bows to this at http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxthedie.html
Bob Bridges said:
"Alea jacta est"; that's not Greek, tromboniator, it's Latin.
That was my point: "Alea jacta est" isn't what he said, so that confuses things. Sorry I wasn't clearer. ἈνεÏÏίφθω κÏβος seems to be the Greek, according to Plutarch according to Wikipedia. I don't know Greek; I heard, long before Wikipedia, "Alea jacta est" was a mistranslation by Suetonius, but I don't remember the source.
Peter
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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