The earliest Greek reference brought to notice is in a laconic
correspondence between the Emperor Nicephorus of Constantinople,
successor to the Princess Irene, and the famous Harun Ar
Rashid of Bagdad, the fifth of the Abbasside dynasty, in 802, which
mentions Pawn and Rook, implying that his predecessor in
paying tribute resembled rather the former for weakness than the
latter for strength; but it had probably been known among the
Greeks before the death of Justinian, in 565, as he was
contemporary with Chosroes, and these rulers were at peace and in
friendly terms of communication, allowing interpretations of their
respective records, which seem to have been of mutual interest.
All the writers who assert that the ancient Greeks and Romans
were unacquainted with chess have overlooked the Roman edict
of 115 B.C., in which both chess and Draughts were specially
exempted from prohibition.
Such consideration as can be found devoted to the game or
games of the Egyptians mainly relates to hypothesis and conjectures
in regard to the inscriptions recorded to have been discovered on
tombs and the temples generally, and especially on the wall of
the great palace of Medinet Abu at Egyptian Thebes, which,
according to the most approved authorities, derived from the
scrolls, relates to the time of Ramesses Meiammun the 16th, out
of the 17 monarchs of the 18th dynasty, who as is supposed,
reigned from 1559 to 1493 B.
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