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Alea iacta est ("The die is cast") is a variation of a Latin phrase (iacta alea est [ˈjakta ˈaːlɛ.a ˈɛs̺t]) attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on 10 January 49 BC, as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy. With this step, he entered Italy at the head of his army in defiance of the Senate and began his long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase was a quote from a play by Menander, and according to Plutarch, Caesar originally said the line in Greek rather than Latin. The Latin version is now most commonly cited with the word order changed (Alea iacta est), and it is used both in this form, and in translation in many languages, to indicate that events have passed a point of no return. The same event inspired another related idiom, "crossing the Rubicon".
Caesar was said to have borrowed the phrase from Menander, the famous Greek writer of comedies, whom he considered a great playwright.[note 1][1] The phrase appears in the lost play Arrephoros, as quoted in Deipnosophistae.[note 2] Plutarch reports that these words were said in Greek:
Ἑλληνιστὶ πρὸς τοὺς παρόντας ἐκβοήσας, «Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος», [anerrhī́phthō kýbos] διεβίβαζε τὸν στρατόν.[3]
He [Caesar] declared in Greek with loud voice to those who were present "Let a die be cast" and led the army across.— Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 60.2.9[4]
Appian, also writing in Greek, reports a very similar phrase:
καὶ εἰπὼν οἷά τις ἔνθους ἐπέρα σὺν ὁρμῇ, τὸ κοινὸν τόδε ἐπειπών· «Ὁ κύβος ἀνερρίφθω».
Then speaking like a man inspired, he surged across, uttering the familiar phrase, "Let the die be cast".— Appian, The Civil Wars, 2.35[5]
Suetonius, a contemporary of Plutarch and Appian, writing in Latin, has the quote in Latin instead of Greek:
Caesar: "... iacta alea est", inquit.[6]
Caesar said, "The die has been cast".— Suetonius, Vita Divi Iuli (The Life of the Deified Julius), 121 AD, paragraph 32
Lewis and Short,[7] citing Casaubon and Ruhnk, suggest that the text of Suetonius should read iacta alea esto (reading the third-person singular future imperative esto instead of the present one est), which they translate as "Let the die be cast!", or "Let the game be ventured!". This matches Plutarch's use of third-person singular perfect middle/passive imperative of the verb ἀναρρίπτω,[8] i.e. ἀνερρίφθω κύβος (anerrhī́phthō kýbos, pronounced [aner̥ːǐːpʰtʰɔː kýbos]).
In Latin alea refers to a game with dice and, more generally, a game of hazard or chance. Dice were common in Roman times and were usually cast three at a time. There were two kinds. The six-sided dice were known in Latin as tesserae and the four-sided ones (rounded at each end) were known as tali.[9] In Greek a die was κύβος kybos.[10]
A: You will not marry if you're in your senses
When you have left this life. For I myself
Did marry; so I recommend you not to.
B: The matter is decided—the die is cast.
A: Go on then. I do wish you then well over it;
But you are taking arms, with no good reason,
Against a sea of troubles. In the waves
Of the deep Libyan or Ægean sea
Scarce three of thirty ships are lost or wreck'd
But scarcely one poor husband 'scapes at all.
Translation by Charles Duke Yonge (1854).[2]
