[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.
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.