Sudden Death

Ball Games and the Ancients

The Romans played four kinds of ball games: follis, trigonalis, paganica, and harpastum. Follis was the game of large and small balls inflated with air; the large ball was hurled by naked players, their fists clad in metal up to the elbow, the whole body smeared with clay and oil — an unguent they called ceroma. Another was called trigonalis, whether because the room in the baths where it was played was triangular, or because the players were three. The third was called paganica, because it was played by the villagers, who in Latin were called pagani: now the ball was of cloth or leather, rather loosely filled with wool, feathers, or hair. The fourth and last game, harpastum, was played with a very small ball on a dusty floor. None of these ball games exist any longer. Instead, leather balls tightly packed with hair are played with sticks. There is a ball inflated with air that is used in Flanders and Florence and it is called valone, and there is the racket, very much employed in Rome.

Letter from LICENCIADO FRANCISCO CASCALES to FATHER M. FR. FRANCISCO INFANTE of the Carmelite Order, 1634