apopudobalia
Sign in to saveApopudobalia (; ἀπο- + ποδός + ball + -ία) is a fictional sport that was the subject of a famous fictitious entry by the German ancient historian Mischa Meier in Der neue Pauly Enzyklopaedie der Antike, edited by H. Cancik and H. Schneider, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1996, ), which gives a description of an ancient Greco-Roman sport that anticipates modern soccer. The article goes on to cite suitably sparse documentation for the nonexistent sport (this includes a Festschrift to one M. Sammer), and to assert that a Roman form of the game enjoyed a certain popularity amongst the Roman legions, and conse
In the Vinony graph
Vinony's link graph records 3 inbound references to apopudobalia, and connects out to United Kingdom, association football and Roman Empire.
Vinony files it under 1996 hoaxes, Fictional ball games and Fictitious entries.
Vinony links it to 6 Wikipedia language editions.
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Apopudobalia (; ἀπο- + ποδός + ball + -ία) is a fictional sport that was the subject of a famous fictitious entry by the German ancient historian Mischa Meier in Der neue Pauly Enzyklopaedie der Antike, edited by H. Cancik and H. Schneider, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1996, ), which gives a description of an ancient Greco-Roman sport that anticipates modern soccer. The article goes on to cite suitably sparse documentation for the nonexistent sport (this includes a Festschrift to one M. Sammer), and to assert that a Roman form of the game enjoyed a certain popularity amongst the Roman legions, and consequently spread throughout the Empire as far afield as Britain, "where the game enjoyed a revival in the 19th century." It also notes that the game was frowned upon by some early Christian writers, such as Tertullian.
In reality, the ancient Romans did play a game resembling rugby called harpastum.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “apopudobalia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.