Harpastum

The word harpastum is the latinisation of the Greek ἁρπαστόν (harpaston),[1] the neuter of ἁρπαστός (harpastos), "carried away",[2] from the verb ἁρπάζω (harpazo), "to seize, to snatch".

To watch such play the populace remains stockstill, and the whole crowd suddenly abandons its own games.Julius Pollux[16] includes harpastum and phaininda in a list of ball games: Phaininda takes its name from Phaenides, who first invented it, or from phenakizein ("to deceive"),[17] because they show the ball to one man and then throw to another, contrary to expectation.

But over and over again, he was forced from his position among the stationary players by the shock of some runner from the middle, and driven into the midfield, where the ball flew past him, or was thrown over his head; and he failed to intercept or parry it.

More than once he fell prone, and had to pick himself up from such collapses as best he could; naturally he was the first to withdraw from the stress of the game.The general impression from these descriptions is of a game quite similar to rugby.

In an epigram, Martial makes reference to the dusty game of harpasta in reference to Atticus' preference for running as exercise:[20] "No hand-ball (pila), no bladder-ball (follis), no feather-stuffed ball (paganica) makes you ready for the warm bath, nor the blunted sword-stroke upon the unarmed stump; nor do you stretch forth squared arms besmeared with oil, nor, darting to and fro, snatch the dusty scrimmage-ball (harpasta), but you run only by the clear Virgin water (the Aqua Virgo aqueduct)."

In the Croatian town of Sinj, a Roman tombstone found in the ruins of the military camp Tilurium, near the modern day Trilj, shows a boy holding a harpastum ball in his hands.