‘The player takes the ball elate, And gives it safely to his mate, Avoids the blows of the other side And shouts to see them hitting wide. List to the cries, “Hit here,” “hit here,” “Too far,” “too high,” “that is not fair”-- See every man with ardour burns To make good strokes and quick returns.’ Another sort of game, less rough in character and more akin to our lacrosse, was possibly played with a lighter feather stuffed ball, in Greek, _sphaira_, the Latin _follis_. Here, tackling was not allowed, and the ball was thrown from hand to hand while the players were running at full speed. In playing with the _harpastum_ or the _follis_ the main object was to drive your opponents to retreat behind their base line, and in both styles there [Illustration: THE THROW-IN AT THE SMALL BALL GAME (Athens)] was a good deal of running. The third type of game, played with the _trigon_, required less exertion. The players here were only three in number, and stood at the three-corners of a triangle, throwing balls quickly one at the other: both hands were used and caddies supplied the players with missiles. All three games were Greek inventions; but they reached the height of their popularity under the Roman Empire. Seneca, writing on the brevity of mortal life, complains that there are many people who have no other occupation but to play ball from morning till night. Martial frequently mentions the dusty _harpastum_, the warming _trigon_, and the feathered _follis_, and in one of his epigrams praises a young student for taking his exercise in the form of a long run rather than waste his time on the ‘busy idleness’ of a ball game. To this period also belongs the one serious account that we have in Greek of any game, Galen’s treatise on exercise with the small ball. Claudius Galenus, born at Pergamum in the reign of Hadrian, 131 A.D., is one of the most notable figures of a notable age. Courtier-physician, scholar-diplomat, the friend of princes and the trainer of gladiators, he recalls the versatility of the great sophists of the fifth century B.C., and he equals them in the breadth and profundity of his knowledge. His writings embrace four distinct fields: medicine in all its aspects, philosophy, rhetoric, and grammatical logic; and although he is best known as a physician his commentaries on Hippocrates may claim to be the beginning of truly scientific scholarship.