Of the organized sport of youth and manhood we derive considerable information from Sidonius, who frequently mentions indoor games such as the _duodecim scripta_, a sort of backgammon,[585] _fritilli_[586] and _pyrgus_[587] (in which dice [_tesserae_] were used), as well as outdoor games. Paulinus of Pella tells us how he was taken ill with fever at the age of fifteen, and his parents, thinking his health more important than ‘doctae instructio linguae’, followed the doctor’s advice and removed him from his school at Bordeaux. Among the pleasures that were planned to speed his recovery was hunting, which his father resumed for his son’s sake.[588] The equipment of a well-to-do Gallic huntsman is described. The young Paulinus wishes for a fine horse with extravagant saddle and bridle adornments (_faleris ornatior_), a tall groom, a swift hound, and a smart hawk. Fine clothes and scent from Arabia are also objects of his desire. The main details of the chase may easily be filled in from Sidonius. From the description of Theodoric’s hunting skill, we gather that spears were used as well as bows,[589] and that the unsportsmanlike Roman habit of driving the game into nets was practised in fifth-century Gaul.[590] The hawk was regarded as an indispensable item.[591] There is river and lake fishing,[592] either with nets or with lines laid before nightfall,[593] and we hear of boat-racing[594] on lakes. The game of ball, which is so frequently mentioned in Sidonius, was undoubtedly the most popular outdoor game. It was played by two persons,[595] or four,[596] or more than four,[597] and we gather that there was a good deal of running about. That is practically all we know of its rules, so that it is, strictly speaking, an assumption to call it ‘tennis’.[598] There were professional ball-throwers or jugglers, and there is an epitaph, found at Narbonne, to one Capito, a ‘pilarius’.[599] The games of the circus were still popular. Majorian held them at Arles,[600] and they are frequently mentioned in inscriptions, as in the one at Arles in which some thousands of sesterces are given ‘from the interest on which athletic or circus games are to be given yearly’.[601] At St. Pierre (Narbonne) a well-preserved inscription was found to a man who had been ‘flamen’ of Augustus and curator of the gladiatorial games, and had been honoured ‘for his exceptional munificence in providing games’.[602] A Massilian inscription mentions ‘agonothet(ae) agoni(s)‘,[603] and it is not impossible that the tradition of public games in Gaul received an initial impetus from the Greek city of the south.