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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:ball:d81c6f9342af",
    "title": "BALL",
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    "verified_text": "ball, thomas (1819- ), american sculptor, was born at charlestown, massachusetts, on the 3rd of june 1819. he was the son of a house-and-sign-painter, and after starting, self-taught, as a portrait painter he turned his attention in 1851 to sculpture, his earliest work being a bust of jenny lind. at thirty-five he went to florence for study; there, with an interval of work in boston, massachusetts, in 1857-1865, he remained for more than thirty years, being one of the artistic colony which included the brownings and hiram powers. he returned to america in 1897, and lived in montclair, new jersey, with a studio in new york city. his work includes many early cabinet busts of musicians (he was an accomplished musician himself, and was the first in america to sing \"elijah\"), and later the equestrian statue of washington in the boston public gardens, probably his best work; josiah quincy in city hall square, boston; charles sumner in the public gardens of boston; daniel webster in central park, new york city; the lincoln emancipation group at washington; edwin forrest as \"coriolanus,\" in the actors' home, philadelphia, and the washington monument in methuen, massachusetts. his work has had a marked influence on monumental art in the united states and especially in new england. in 1891 he published an autobiographical volume, _my three score years and ten_. ball (in mid. eng. _bal_; the word is probably cognate with \"bale,\" teutonic in origin, cf. also lat. _follis_, and gr. [greek: palla]), any rounded body, particularly one with a smooth surface, whether used for games, as a missile, or applied to such rounded bodies as the protuberance at the root of the thumb or the big toe, to an enarthrosis, or \"ball socket\" joint, such as that of the hip or shoulder, and the like. a ball, as the essential feature in nearly every form of game requiring physical exertion, must date from the very earliest times. a rolling object appeals not only to a human baby but to a kitten and a puppy. some form of game with a ball is found portrayed on egyptian monuments, and is played among the least advanced of savage tribes at the present day. in homer, nausicaa was playing at ball with her maidens when odysseus first saw her in the land of the phaeacians (_od_. vi. 100). and halios and laodamas performed before alcinous and odysseus with ball play, accompanied with dancing (_od_. viii. 370). the hebrews, the least athletic of races, have no mention of the ball in their scriptures. among the greeks games with balls ([greek: sphairai]) 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. similarly at rome they 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_). 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 [greek: onomastikon] of pollux of naucratis, imply little or nothing of such; thus, [greek: aporraxis] only means the putting of the ball on the ground with the open hand, [greek: ourania], the flinging of the ball in the air to be caught by two or more players; [greek: 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 [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.",
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