In the gymnasiums of the thermal bath facilities it was common to spend time playing a ball game before bathing.
This object, common even in today’s games, was often filled with sand (harpastra) or feathers (paganica), and was used for a game similar to volleyball in which the participants exchanged passes using their hands as rackets; with a ball filled with air, on the other hand, elegant passes similar to those of basketball were played, while another common habit was to fill a larger ball with flour or earth and train by punching it.
