Sport in the Cultures of the Ancient World : New Perspectives

ISBN-13: 9780415497152 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 224 str.

Zinon Papakonstantinou;J. A. Mangan;Boria Majumdar

Opis

Sport was 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 the chapters in this book, written by an international cast of distinguished scholars on ancient sport, attempt 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.

Spis treści

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

O autorze

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.