Editing Ball (section)

==History==
[[File:Russian balls 12-13.jpg|thumb|Russian [[leather]] balls ({{Langx|ru|мячи}}), 12th-13th century.]]
Some form of game with a ball is found portrayed on [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptian]] monuments.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Egypt State Information Service |title=Ancient Egyptian Sport |url=https://www.sis.gov.eg/section/10/733?lang=en-us |access-date=2024-05-27}}</ref> In [[Homer]], [[Nausicaa]] was playing at ball with her maidens when [[Odysseus]] first saw her in the land of the [[Phaeacia]]ns (Od. vi. 100). And Halios and Laodamas performed before [[Alcinous]] and Odysseus with ball play, accompanied with dancing (Od. viii. 370).<ref name="eb1911"/> The most ancient balls in [[Eurasia]] have been discovered in [[Karasahr]], [[China]] and are 3000 years old. They were made of hair-filled leather.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leather-balls-point-ancient-chinese-sport-180976102/|title=These Hair-Filled Leather Pouches Are the Oldest Balls Found in Eurasia|last=Gershon|first=Livia|date=October 21, 2020|website=www.smithsonianmag.com|publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution]]|access-date=November 2, 2020}}</ref>

===Ancient Greeks===
Among the [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]], games with balls (σφαῖραι) were regarded as a useful subsidiary to the more violent athletic exercises, as a means of keeping the body supple, and rendering it graceful, but were generally left to boys and girls. Of regular rules for the playing of ball games, little trace remains, if there were any such. The names in Greek for various forms, which have come down to us in such works as the Ὀνομαστικόν of [[Julius Pollux]], imply little or nothing of such; thus, ἀπόρραξις (''aporraxis'') only means the putting of the ball on the ground with the open hand, οὐρανία (''ourania''), the flinging of the ball in the air to be caught by two or more players; φαινίνδα (''phaininda'') would seem to be a game of catch played by two or more, where feinting is used as a test of quickness and skill. Pollux (i. x. 104) mentions a game called [[episkyros]] (ἐπίσκυρος), which has often been looked on as the origin of football. It seems to have been played by two sides, arranged in lines; how far there was any form of "goal" seems uncertain.<ref name="eb1911">{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Ball}}</ref> It was impossible to produce a ball that was perfectly spherical;<ref name="Garland2008">{{cite book|last=Garland|first=Robert|date=2008|title=Ancient Greece: Everyday Life in the Birthplace of Western Civilization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-R1PmAEACAAJ&q=Ancient+Greece:+Everyday+Life+in+the+Birthplace+of+Western+Civilization|publisher=Sterling|location=New York City, New York|isbn=978-1-4549-0908-8|page=96}}</ref> children usually made their own balls by inflating pig's bladders and heating them in the ashes of a fire to make them rounder,<ref name="Garland2008"/> although [[Plato]] (fl. 420s BC – 340s BC) described "balls which have leather coverings in twelve pieces".<ref>{{cite book
| author = Plato
| author-link = Plato
| editor        = Charles W. Eliot
| translator    = Benjamin Jowett
| title         = The Apology, Phædo and Crito of Plato – The Golden Sayings of Epictetus – The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius 
| chapter-url           = https://archive.org/details/harvardclassics002elio/page/107
| access-date    = May 16, 2020
| edition   = 1st
| series    = The Harvard Classics
| volume    = 2
| year      = 1909
| publisher = P. F. Collier and Son
| location  = New York
| page      = 107
| chapter   = Phædo (Dialogues of Plato)
}}</ref>

===Ancient Romans===
Among the [[Ancient Rome|Romans]], ball games were looked upon as an adjunct to the bath, and were graduated to the age and health of the bathers, and usually a place (sphaeristerium) was set apart for them in the baths (thermae). There appear to have been three types or sizes of ball, the pila, or small ball, used in catching games, the paganica, a heavy ball stuffed with feathers, and the [[Follis (ball game)|follis]], a leather ball filled with air, the largest of the three. This was struck from player to player, who wore a kind of [[Gauntlet (glove)|gauntlet]] on the arm. There was a game known as [[Trigon (game)|trigon]], played by three players standing in the form of a triangle, and played with the follis, and also one known as [[harpastum]], which seems to imply a "scrimmage" among several players for the ball. These games are known to us through the Romans, though the names are Greek.<ref name="eb1911"/>

===Modern ball games===
[[File:How_to_play_basket_ball;_a_thesis_on_the_technique_of_the_game_(IA_howtoplaybasketb02mess).pdf|thumb|right|alt=An early manual for teaching basketball|An early manual for teaching basketball]]

The various modern games played with a ball or balls and subject to rules are treated under their various names, such as [[polo]], [[cricket]], [[football]], etc.<ref name="eb1911"/>