"I know!" cried Edith clapping her hands; "you've just said it, Maggie—a ball. Don't you know people always dance at a ball."
The children were very much pleased to find out that the grown-up people's amusement took its name from one of their toys, and that the short songs, or ballads, which we sing came from the songs which the Greeks sang whilst they played ball.
"Did they play ball in any other way?" asked Maggie.
"Sometimes it was put on the middle line, between the two parties playing, and each party tried to seize it, and throw it over the adversary's goal-line."
"Why, that's like our own football, isn't it, auntie?"
"Yes; the Epikoinos, or common game of ball played by the Greek children, is really the great-great-great-grandfather of our football."
"Had those children any hoops?" asked Edith.
"The Romans had hoops, and even the same kind of hooked stick, but they played very differently from what we do. They tried to snatch the hoop from each other with the hook."
"I'm glad I am not a Roman, then," said Edith, "for I do love a good straight run with my hoop; and that must have been more like fighting than playing. But do tell us some more about those children's games. It seems so strange to think they had balls and hoops like us."
"They had whip-tops, too," I said. "And some people say that the great Emperor Augustus used to play at marbles when he was a boy. You have seen Charlie and Tom play with knucklebones; the Greek children had them too, and sometimes there were numbers on them, and each bone had a different name. Backgammon and draughts were played by the Greeks, and we see by some of the pictures on the tombs in Egypt that the game of draughts was very popular there."