x. 104)
mentions a game called [Greek: episkuros], 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.
Among the Romans 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_, a leather ball filled with
air, the largest of the three. This was struck from player to player, who
wore a kind of gauntlet on the arm. There was a game known as _trigon_,
played by three players standing in [v.03 p.0264] 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.[1] These
games are known to us through the Romans, though the names are Greek. 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, &c.

From Fr. _bal_, _baller_, to dance (late Lat. _ballare_, and hence
connected with "ballad," "ballet") comes "ball," meaning a dance, and
especially a social gathering of people for the purpose of dancing.

[1] Martial (iv. 19. 6) calls the _harpastum_, _pulverulentum_, implying
that it involves a considerable amount of exertion.

BALLADE, the technical name of a complicated and fixed form of verse,
arranged on a precise system, and having nothing in common with the word
_ballad_, except its derivation from the same Low Latin verb, _ballare_, to
dance. In the 14th and 15th centuries it was spelt _balade_. In its regular
conditions a ballade consists of three stanzas and an envoi; there is a
refrain which is repeated at the close of each stanza and of the envoi. The
entire poem should contain but three or four rhymes, as the case may be,
and these must be reproduced with exactitude in each section. These rules
were laid down by Henri de Croi, whose _L'Art et science de rhetorique_ was
first printed in 1493, and he added that if the refrain consists of eight
syllables, the ballade must be written in huitains (eight-line stanzas), if
of ten syllables in dizains (ten-line), and so on. The form can best be
studied in an example, and we quote, as absolutely faultless in execution,
the famous "Ballade aux Enfants Perdus," composed by Theodore de Banville
in 1861:--

"Je le sais bien que Cythere est en deuil!