His long life was spent in acquiring and imparting knowledge. A thorough education, conducted under his father’s eye, rendered him apt for every art. His wealth enabled him to travel and study at his leisure, and in early manhood he made the ‘grand tour’ of the ancient world, living for a time at Smyrna, Alexandria, and Rome before he returned to his native town. We have now 118 genuine extant works from his pen, which translated from the Greek into Arabic and thence again into Latin, were the chief text-books in all the mediæval universities. Editions were innumerable, and even to-day the name of Galen occupies more than fifty pages in the British Museum Catalogue. In a production so immense we must not expect consummate grace of language, but his own maxim, ‘the first merit of style is clearness’ is well exemplified in the ‘Small ball,’ which is short enough to be translated here in its entirety. ‘How great an advantage for health gymnastic exercises are and what an important part they play in questions of diet has been sufficiently explained by the best of our ancient philosophers and physicians. But how superior to all other exercise is the use of the small ball has never been adequately set forth by any of my predecessors. It is only right then for me to put forward my ideas for your criticism, Epigenes, since you have the very best practical experience of the athletic art, in the further hope that they may be useful also to all those to whom you communicate your knowledge. ‘The best forms of gymnastic, I think, are those which are able not only to work the body but also to delight the mind. Those men were true philosophers who invented coursing and the other varieties of the chase, tempering the labour they involve with pleasure, exultation and rivalry, and they had an accurate knowledge of human nature. So powerful an effect has mental emotion upon the stuff of which we are made that many people have been cured of ailments merely by the effect of joy, while many others have fallen ill from sorrow. Indeed, of all the affections that are rooted in the body none is strong enough to master those others that have the mind for their sphere. So it is wrong to neglect the character of our mental emotions; we ought for every reason to give more attention to them than to the condition of our body, especially as the mind is more important than the body can be. This care is the common function of all gymnastic exercises that have an element of pleasure in them, but there are other special points in small ball play which I will now describe.