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timelets“there occurred a severe famine throughout all of Lydia. For some time the Lydians tenaciously endured, but then, when they saw no end to it, they sought remedies, and different people came up with various solutions. That was when certain individuals among them invented dice, knucklebones,a ball games, and other sorts of games—with the exception of draughts,b which the Lydians do not claim to have invented. [4] With these inventions they adopted the following strategy against the famine. On one day they played games so that they did not crave food; on the next, they stopped playing and ate, and they lived this way for eighteen years.”
--- Herodotus, Histories.
just in case you wanted a side-by-side original and translation https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hh/hh1090.htm
