The Romans kept a huge army, who did an awful lot of marching around and bashing things, frankly none of which sounds like an awful lot of fun. However, the way they trained might have been altogether more pleasant.

Meet Freddus Maximus, your drill sergeant. Time to bring in the legionaries…

Oh, heck, it’s them. Amount of training needed: huge. Best get stuck in, with… hopscotch.

Hopscotch?

Yes, hopscotch. This court is more than thirty metres long, and Roman legionaries were required to exercise up and down it while wearing full armour.

Today, soldiers train on assault courses – and this is exactly the same idea. But Roman soldiers found that hopscotch was particularly good for their footwork on rough, uneven ground.

Off go the troops again, this time lugging sacks of rocks with them.

Gradually, the old Roman training exercise evolved into the playground game we know today.

Perhaps you manage rather better at it than these too horrible specimens.

There’s more about hopscotch at Wikipedia, of course, and also on this site about urban games.