Sport in the Cultures of the Ancient World

Sport has been practised in the Greco-Roman world at least since the second millennium BC. It was socially integrated and was practised in the context of ceremonial performances, physical education and established local and international competitions including, most famously, the Olympic Games. In recent years, the continuous re-assessment of old and new evidence in conjunction with the development of new methodological perspectives have created the need for a fresh examination of central aspects of ancient sport in a single volume. This book fills that gap in ancient sport scholarship. When did the ancient Olympics begin? How is sport depicted in the work of the fifth-century historian Herodotus? What was the association between sport and war in fifth- and fourth-century BC Athens? What were the social and political implications of the practice of Greek-style sport in third-century BC Ptolemaic Egypt? How were Roman gladiatorial shows perceived and transformed in the Greek-speaking east? And what were the conditions of sport participation by boys and girls in ancient Rome? These are some of the questions that this book, written by an international cast of distinguished scholars on ancient sport, attempts to answer. Covering a wide chronological and geographical scope (ancient Mediterranean from the early first millennium BC to fourth century AD), individual articles re-examine old and new evidence, and offer stimulating, original interpretations of key aspects of ancient sport in its political, military, cultural, social, ceremonial and ideological setting. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Zinon Papakonstantinou is Assistant Professor of Hellenic Studies at the University of Washington. He has authored Lawmaking and Adjudication in Archaic Greece, Duckworth: London 2008 and articles on Greek law, sport and commensality.

1. Prologue: Sport in the Cultures of the Ancient World Zinon Papakonstantinou 2. Contesting Ancient Mediterranean Sport Thomas Scanlon 3. Whence 776? The Origin of the Date for the First Olympiad Paul Christesen 4. Pan-Hellenism and Particularism: Herodotus on Sport, Greekness, Piety, and War Donald Kyle 5. Sport, War and Democracy in Classical Athens David Pritchard 6. Challenged by Egyptians: Greek Sports in the Third century BC Sofie Remijsen 7. Gladiators in the Greek east: a Case Study in Romanization Christian Mann 8. Gladiators and Monomachoi: Greek Attitudes to a Roman 'Cultural Performance' Michael Carter 9. The Greek Ephebate in the Roman Period Nigel Kennell 10. Observations on Boys, Girls, Youths and Age Categories in Roman Sports and Spectacles Nigel Crowther 11. Epilogue: Some Perspectives on Ancient Sport Zinon Papakonstantinou