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Balloon (game)
Balloon, baloun, balloon-ball or wind-ball is a game similar to the modern game of volleyball, in which a leather ball is batted by the fist or forearm to prevent it from touching the ground. The game was played in ancient Rome where it was known as follis, the Latin word for a leather bag. Such a ball made of leather was quite heavy and so protection might be used such as a leather gauntlet or wooden bracer. The Roman game was considered a sport for boys and old men, as Martial wrote: Once rubber became available, modern players in Great Britain played the game with lighter balls of inflated rubber, allowing younger children to join in. See also * Episkyros - ancient Greek ball game * Handball - team sport with two teams of seven players each * Harpastum - ball game played in the Roman Empire * Pallone ''Pallone'' (; Italian for an inflated ball, source of the English word ''balloon'') is the name of several traditional ball games, played in all regions of Italy, with few ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Follis
The follis (plural ''folles''; , ) was a type of coin in the Roman and Byzantine traditions. Roman coin The term ''follis'' is used for a large bronze Roman coin denomination introduced by Diocletian in about 294. The term "nummus" is now thought to be the actual ancient term, but usage of "nummus" has not caught on. At first the follis weighed about 10 grams and was about 4% silver, with a thin layer of silver on the surface. Over the next decades it declined both in size and in silver content. The word ''follis'' means bag (usually made of leather) in Latin, and there is evidence that this term was used in antiquity for a sealed bag containing a specific amount of coinage. It has also been suggested that the coin was named Follis because of the ancient Greek word "φολίς" meaning a thin layer of metal (''cf.'' Latin ''folium'', "leaf") which covers the surface of various objects, since originally, this coin had a thin layer of silver on top. The 'follis' of Diocletian, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summer Olympic Games since Tokyo 1964. Beach volleyball was introduced to the program at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. The adapted version of volleyball at the Summer Paralympic Games is sitting volleyball. Basic play The complete set of rules is extensive, but play essentially proceeds as follows: a player on one of the teams begins a 'rally' by serving the ball (tossing or releasing it and then hitting it with a hand or arm), from behind the back boundary line of the court, over the net, and into the receiving team's court. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court. The team may touch the ball up to three times to return the ball to the other side of the court, but individual players may not touch th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (50927 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic peoples, Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greece, Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and the Etruscans, Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its hei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Follis (ball)
Follis (a term used in Ancient Rome), or Ball of wind (''pilota de vent'' in Catalan), a term used in the 15th and 16th centuries in Spain and Italy, was a hollow ball inflated with air under pressure, able to jump and bounce when impacting at a certain speed with any solid body. Different types of balls of wind were commonly used to play a variety of ball games that were popular in that particular period of time. Today, although many of the existing balls are inflated with air, the modern name is simplified to "ball" regardless of the system. History Ball games were played by the Greeks of Classical antiquity. Although it is unknown whether they used inflated balls, it is considered likely given the well documented use of "balls of wind" in Ancient Rome, with the larger balls called , and the smaller balls called . Suetonius described a ''follis'' as a "ball of wind". An animal bladder was inflated to create a ball, preferably that of a pig. In the Middle Ages, balls were m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gauntlet (glove)
A gauntlet is a type of glove that protects the hand and wrist of a combatant. Gauntlets were used particularly in Europe between the early fourteenth century and the early modern period and were often constructed of hardened leather or metal plates. Gauntlets, which cover the hands, wrists, and sometimes forearms, are not to be confused with bracers, which cover the wrists and forearms but not the hands; bracers are common in medieval and fantasy cosplay. Types Armour Beginning in the 11th century, European soldiers and knights relied on chain mail for protection of their bodies, and chain armor "shirts" with wide sleeves that hung to the elbow were common. However, it wasn't until the 12th century that chain mail shirts with longer, narrower sleeves began to be worn, and these on occasion had chain mail mittens or "muffs" resembling fingerless gloves and with a pocket for the thumb (though some of these did have complete fingers as well). These attached at the lower e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bracer
A bracer (or arm-guard) is a strap or sheath, commonly made of leather, stone or plastic, that covers the ventral (inside) surface of an archer's bow-holding arm. It protects the archer's forearm against injury by accidental whipping from the bowstring or the fletching of the arrow while shooting, and also prevents the loose sleeve from catching the bowstring. They normally only cover part of the forearm, but full-length bracers extending to the upper arm are also available, and other areas have been covered by some archers. In addition, chest guards are sometimes worn, usually by female archers, to protect the breast. With some combinations of non-baggy clothing and bows with a larger distance between the bow and the string, the archer may not need to wear any bracer. Decorated bracers The modern Navajo people and Hopi developed a form of bracer known as a ketoh, which can be decorated with silver, turquoise, and other adornments, possibly from earlier examples made of bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman and Celtiberian poet born in Bilbilis, Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of '' Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In these poems he satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing. He wrote a total of 1,561 epigrams, of which 1,235 are in elegiac couplets. Martial has been called the greatest Latin epigrammatist, and is considered the creator of the modern epigram. He also coined the term plagiarism. Early life Knowledge of his origins and early life are derived almost entirely from his works, which can be more or less dated according to the well-known events to which they refer. In Book X of his ''Epigrams'', composed between 95 and 98, he mentions celebrating his fifty-sevent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Types of polyisoprene that are used as natural rubbers are classified as elastomers. Currently, rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex from the Hevea brasiliensis, Pará rubber tree (''Hevea brasiliensis'') or others. The latex is a sticky, milky and white colloid drawn off by making incisions in the bark and collecting the fluid in vessels in a process called "tapping". Manufacturers refine this latex into the rubber that is ready for commercial processing. Natural rubber is used extensively in many applications and products, either alone or in combination with other materials. In most of its useful forms, it has a large stretch ratio and high resilience and also is buoyant and water-proof. Industrial demand for rubber-like materials began to out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Episkyros
''Episkyros'', or ''episcyrus'' (, , ; also , , ) was an Ancient Greek ball game. The game was typically played between two teams of 12 to 14 players each, being highly teamwork-oriented. The game allowed full contact and usage of the hands. While it was typically men who played, women also occasionally participated. Although it was a ball game, it was quite violent (at least in Sparta). The game is comparable to rugby, American football, or '' calcio storico fiorentino'', at least in concept. The two teams would attempt to throw the ball over the heads of the other team. There was a white line called the between the teams, and another white line behind each team. The teams would change possession of the ball often, until one of the teams was forced behind their line. In Sparta, a form of ''episkyros'' was played during an annual city festival that included five teams of 14 players. The Greek game of ''episkyros'', or a similar game called () was later adopted by the Roma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Handball
Handball (also known as team handball, European handball, Olympic handball or indoor handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the opposing team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins. Modern handball is played on a court of , with a goal in the middle of each end. The goals are surrounded by a zone where only the defending goalkeeper is allowed; goals must be scored by throwing the ball from outside the zone or while "diving" into it. The sport is usually played indoors, but outdoor variants exist in the forms of field handball, Czech handball (which were more common in the past) and beach handball. The game is fast and high-scoring: professional teams now typically score between 20 and 35 goals each, though lower scores were not uncommon until a few decades ago. Body contact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harpastum
, also known as , was a form of ball game played in the Roman Empire. The Romans also referred to it as the small ball game. The ball used was small (not as large as a , , or football-sized ball) and hard, probably about the size and solidity of a softball and was stuffed with feathers. The word is the latinisation of the Greek (), the neuter of (), "carried away", from the verb (), "to seize, to snatch". This game was apparently a Romanized version of a Greek game called (Greek: ), or of another Greek game called (Greek: ). It involved considerable speed, agility and physical exertion. The two teams needed to keep the ball on their side of the field as long as they could. Little is known about the exact rules of the game, but sources indicate the game was a violent one with players often ending up on the ground. In Greece, a spectator (of the Greek form of the game) once had his leg broken when he got caught in the middle of play. In the Middle Ages, the game is thought ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pallone
''Pallone'' (; Italian for an inflated ball, source of the English word ''balloon'') is the name of several traditional ball games, played in all regions of Italy, with few differences in regulations. Forms ''Pallone col bracciale'' ''Pallone col bracciale'', or simply ''bracciale'', was particularly popular throughout Italy and it was considered the most popular sport of ancient Italian national sports since the 16th century; its first official regulations invented by Antonio Scaino from Salò date back to 1555. This sport and its champions were described by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Karl Philipp Moritz, Christian Joseph Jagemann, Richard Colt Hoare, Jacob Burckhardt, William Wetmore Story, Giacomo Leopardi, Edmondo de Amicis, Giuseppe Baretti, Antonio Francesco Grazzini, Ottavio Rinuccini, Gabriello Chiabrera, Tommaso Grossi and Giuseppe Gioachino Belli. ''Bracciale'' was played also in France, Germany, Austria, England, Netherlands and famous Italian champions o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
