Roman Hopscotch?

[buff-scrag]

I vividly remember being taught at school that the children's game of hopscotch had been introduced into Britain by Roman soldiers. As I recall, they were supposed to have used it as an agility training exercise while wearing full armour. :lol:

I'm pretty certain that there is no evidence for this in the ancient sources, but does anyone else remember being taught this, or can anyone suggest a possible origin for such an unlikely claim?

[Vindex]

I admit that's a new one on me.

I suppose the modern equivalent would be trying to "run" through a network of car tyres as quickly as possible putting one's foot in each tyre on the ground.

Remember doing that wearing 44lbs... hock:

Not sure how much of a challenge doing it on the flat would be, but then again one assumes the hopscotch game now is only a derivative of the concept.

[Epictetus]

A Google search of "hopscotch Roman Empire" brings up a ton of hits. Here is one example, which seems to have been copied and reposted on different web sites.

It seems to be widely believed, but unfortunately I see no sources for this.