Apopudobalia

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Apopudobalia (a fictional sport) is the subject of a famous fictitious entry (a mild or humorous hoax in a reference work). Although no such sport actually existed, the German-language Der neue Pauly. Enzyklopaedie der Antike, edited by H. Cancik and H. Schneider, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1986, ISBN 3-476-01470-3) gives a deadpan description of it as an ancient Greco-Roman sport that anticipates modern football (soccer). The article goes on to cite suitably sparse documentation for the non-existent sport, and to assert that a Roman form of the game enjoyed a certain popularity amongst the Roman legions, and consequently spread throughout the Empire as far afield as Britain, "where the game enjoyed a revival in the 19th century." (It also notes that the game was frowned upon by some early Christian writers, such as Tertullian.)

The ancient Romans did play a form of football called harpastum.

[edit] External links

• A facsimile of the article, accompanied by a piece in which two classical scholars point at flaws in the article's scholarship while totally missing the joke, and another piece in which Wolfgang Hübner explains the matter.