Apopudobalia
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Apopudobalia (a fictional sport) is the subject of a famous nihilartikel (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 3476014703) 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.)
External link
- A facsimile of the article (http://www.mediaevum.de/lexikaspass1.htm), 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.