Chess History And Reminiscences
Ramses III was the 15th Monarch of the 18th dynasty, the date
affixed to him being 1561 to 1559 B.C., but the British Museum
Catalogue, page 60 says: The principal part of the monuments in
this room are of the age of King Ramses II, the Sesostris of the
Greeks, and the greatest monarch of the 19th dynasty; but, in the
tables, he appears as the 14th of the 18th dynasty 1565 to
1561 B.C. and the catalogue is probably a slip.
No consensus of agreement however has been arrived as to
Egyptian Chronology. Sesostris for example 1473 to 1418 B.C.,
(Manetho, the scrolls Young, Champollion) Herodotus thought,
ascended the throne about 1360 B.C.
Some Bible Commentators have even called the Shishak of Scripture
558 B.C. Sesostris.
Bishop Warburton was wont to vent his displeasure on those who
did not agree with him. For instance, on one Nicholas Mann,
whose provocation was that he argued for the identity of Osiris
and Sesostris after Warburton had pronounced that they were to be
distinguished, he revenged himself by saying to Archbishop Potter
in an abrupt way, "I suppose, you know, you have chosen an Arian."
Under Exodus 1 C.B. 1604 a note occurs.
The Pharaoh, in whose reign Moses was born, is known in general
history by the name of Rameses IV, surnamed Mei Amoun. He reigned
66 years, which agrees with the account given Ch. 4, 19, that he
lived till long after Moses had retired to the desert. The
Pharaoh who reigned when the Israelites went out of Egypt was
Rameses V surnamed Amenophis.
Moses' birth is under B.C. 1531, Exodus ii., his death under
B.C. 1451, Deuteronomy xxxiv., but as he was 120 years old when
he died, one of these dates must be wrong, he was probably born
B.C. 1571.
Opposite Chapter 14 v.25 of 1st of Kings B.C. 958 says: There
can be no rational doubt that this Shishak was the famous
Sesostris the conqueror of Asia. Herodotus, the father of
profane history, relates that he, himself, has seen stones in
Palestine erected by the Conqueror, and recording his achievements.
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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
and permitted if they had seen this explicit statement. It has
never been suggested by any writer that the Romans ever left an
inkling or taste for intellectual pastimes in Britain. The name
of Agricola or that of any other Roman is not associated with
any tradition or story of the game, even Aristotle and Alexander
the Great and Indian Porus (names we find in Eastern accounts)
are names not so familiar in speculatory traditions as to chess,
though less remote, than that of Thoth the Egyptian Mercury who
Plato says invented chess "Hermes" (Asiatic M.S.) or the more
frequently mentioned Moses, and the Kings of Babylon with their
philosophers. The favoured notion that chess (first) came into
Europe through the Arabs in Spain about 710 to 715 A.D. may yet
prove ill matured and require modification, and for English first
knowledge of the game, we may on inferential and presumptive
evidence prefer the contemporary period of Offa, Egbert and
Alcuin when Charlemagne, the Greek Emperors and the Khalifs
of the East so much practised and patronized the game, rather
than the conquest or Crusaders theory of origin among us, which
is also beside inconsistent with incidents related in the earlier
reigns of Athelstan, Edgar and Canute, and moreover is not
based upon any direct testimony whatever.
In proof of the ancient use of chess among the Scandinavians.
In the Sages of Ragnar Lodbrog printed in Bioiners collection,
and in an ancient account of the Danish invasion of Northumberland
in the Ninth century entitled Nordymbra, it is stated that
after the death of Ragnar, messengers were sent to his sons in
Denmark by King Alla to communicate the intelligence and to
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