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Author: Zinon Papakonstantinou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131798949X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
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.
Author: Zinon Papakonstantinou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131798949X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Get Book Here
Book Description
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.
Author: Michael B. Poliakoff
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300063127
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
A comprehensive study of the practice of combat sports in the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome and the Near East.
Author: Donald G. Kyle
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 063122971X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424
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Book Description
This is a readable, up-to-date, illustrated introduction to the history of sport and spectacle in the ancient world from the Ancient Near East through Greek and Hellenistic times and into the Roman Empire. Covers athletics, combat sports, chariot racing, beast fights and gladiators. Traces the precursors of Greek and Roman sports and spectacles in the Ancient Near East and the Bronze Age Aegean. Investigates the origins, nature and meaning of sport, covering issues of violence, professionalism, class, gender and eroticism. Challenges the notion that Greek sport and Roman spectacle were polar opposites. Approaches sport and spectacle as overlapping and compatible features of civilized states and empires.
Author: Paul Christesen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139576798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
This book explores the relationship between sport and democratization. Drawing on sociological and historical methodologies, it provides a framework for understanding how sport affects the level of egalitarianism in the society in which it is played. The author distinguishes between horizontal sport, which embodies and fosters egalitarian relations, and vertical sport, which embodies and fosters hierarchical relations. Christesen also differentiates between societies in which sport is played and watched on a mass scale and those in which it is an ancillary activity. Using ancient Greece and nineteenth-century Britain as case studies, Christesen analyzes how these variables interact and finds that horizontal mass sport has the capacity to both promote and inhibit democratization at a societal level. He concludes that horizontal mass sport tends to reinforce and extend democratization.
Author: Heather L. Reid
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317984951
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
This book examines the relationship between athletics and philosophy in ancient Greece and Rome focused on the connection between athleticism and virtue. It begins by observing that the link between athleticism and virtue is older than sport, reaching back to the athletic feats of kings and pharaohs in early Egypt and Mesopotamia. It then traces the role of athletics and the Olympic Games in transforming the idea of aristocracy as something acquired by birth to something that can be trained. This idea of training virtue through the techniques and practice of athletics is examined in relation to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Then Roman spectacles such as chariot racing and gladiator games are studied in light of the philosophy of Lucretius, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. The concluding chapter connects the book’s ancient observations with contemporary issues such as the use of athletes as role models, the relationship between money and corruption, the relative worth of participation and spectatorship, and the role of females in sport. The author argues that there is a strong link between sport and philosophy in the ancient world, calling them offspring of common parents: concern about virtue and the spirit of free enquiry. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Ethics and Sport.
Author: Reyes Bertolín Cebrián
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806167580
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
In the world of sports, the most important component is the athlete. After all, without athletes there would be no sports. In ancient Greece, athletes were public figures, idolized and envied. This fascinating book draws on a broad range of ancient sources to explore the development of athletes in Greece from the archaic period to the Roman Empire. Whereas many previous books have focused on the origins of the Greek games themselves, or the events or locations where the games took place, this volume places a unique emphasis on the athletes themselves—and the fostering of their athleticism. Moving beyond stereotypes of larger-than-life heroes, Reyes Bertolín Cebrián examines the experiences of ordinary athletes, who practiced sports for educational, recreational, or professional purposes. According to Bertolín Cebrián, the majority of athletes in ancient times were young men and mostly single. Similar to today, most athletes practiced sport as part of their schooling. Yet during the fifth century B.C., a major shift in ancient Greek education took place, when the curriculum for training future leaders became more academic in orientation. As a result, argues Bertolín Cebrián, the practice of sport in the Hellenistic period lost its appeal to the intellectual elite, even as it remained popular with large sectors of the population. Thus, a gap emerged between the “higher” and “lower” cultures of sport. In looking at the implications of this development for athletes, whether high-performing or recreational, this erudite volume traverses such wide-ranging fields as history, literature, medicine, and sports psychology to recreate—in compelling detail—the life and lifestyle of the ancient Greek athlete.
Author: Nigel B. Crowther
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806139951
Category : Sports
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A lively survey encompassing the Orient, the Americas, and the classical world From the Olympic Games of Greece to the gladiatorial contests of Rome, sport in the ancient world was fiercely competitive and included a wider range of physical contests than we moderns might suspect. The early Chinese played forms of polo and golf, while half a world away, Hohokam and Maya Indians enjoyed team ball games. Nigel Crowther, a leading authority on classical Greek sport, here casts his net over the entire ancient world to reveal the variety, and often the intensity, of sport in earlier times, from 3000 b.c.e. to the Middle Ages. Taking in twenty premodern societies on five continents--with particular emphasis on ancient Greece and Rome and the Byzantine Empire--he traces connections to modern sporting attitudes, practices, and institutions as he describes how athletics figured in cultural arenas that extended beyond physical prowess to ritual, social status, military associations, and politics. Crowther takes us back to the birth of sumo wrestling in Japan and describes the sports of the Sumerians and Hittites. He documents bull leaping and boxing as recorded on pottery in Crete, as well as running and archery as practiced by the pharaohs in Egypt. He shows the significance of the early Olympic Games, describes the Romans' use of gladiatorial contests for political ends, and analyzes the influence of Byzantine chariot racing on society. He also notes the changing role of women in ancient sports--from their prominence in Egyptian contests, to the mythological Atalanta, to female Roman gladiators. As informative as it is entertaining, Sport in Ancient Times opens new vistas for general readers, students, and sport historians. It offers a broad look at ancient sport and will enrich readers' appreciation of games they enjoy today.
Author: Mark Golden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521497909
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Sport and Society in Ancient Greece provides a concise and readable introduction to ancient Greek sport. It covers such topics as the links between sport, religion and warfare, the origins and history of the Olympic games, and the spirit of competition among the Greeks. Its main focus, however, is on Greek sport as an arena for the creation and expression of difference among individuals and groups. Sport not only identified winners and losers. It also drew boundaries between groups (Greeks and barbarians, boys and men, males and females) and offered a field for debate on the relative worth of athletic and equestrian competition. The book includes guides to the ancient evidence and to modern scholarship on the subject.
Author: Eleni Fournaraki
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317979737
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 205
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Book Description
Ancient Greece was the model that guided the emergence of many facets of the modern sports movement, including most notably the Olympics. Yet the process whereby aspects of the ancient world were appropriated and manipulated by sport authorities of nation-states, athletic organizations and their leaders as well as by sports enthusiasts is only very partially understood. This volume takes modern Greece as a case-study and explores, in depth, issues related to the reception and use of classical antiquity in modern sport, spectacle and bodily culture. For citizens of the Greek nation-state, classical antiquity is not merely a vague "legacy" but the cornerstone of their national identity. In the field of sport and bodily culture, since the 1830s there had been persistent attempts to establish firm and direct links between ancient Greek athletics and modern sport through the incorporation of sport in school curricula, the emergence of national sport historiographies as well as the initiatives to revive (in the 19th century) or appropriate (in the 20th) the modern Olympics. Based on fieldwork and unpublished material sources, this book dissects the use and abuse of classical antiquity and sport in constructing national, gender and class identities, and illuminate aspects of the complex modern perceptions of classicism, sport and the body. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.
Author: Zinon Papakonstantinou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317051122
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
From the eighth century BCE to the late third century CE, Greeks trained in sport and competed in periodic contests that generated enormous popular interest. As a result, sport was an ideal vehicle for the construction of a plurality of identities along the lines of ethnic origin, civic affiliation, legal and social status as well as gender. Sport and Identity in Ancient Greece delves into the rich literary and epigraphic record on ancient Greek sport and examines, through a series of case studies, diverse aspects of the process of identity construction through sport. Chapters discuss elite identities and sport, sport spectatorship, the regulatory framework of Greek sport, sport and benefaction in the Hellenistic and Roman world, embodied and gendered identities in epigraphic commemoration, as well as the creation of a hybrid culture of Greco-Roman sport in the eastern Mediterranean during the Roman imperial period.
