Athletics in the Ancient World

The athletic competitions that took place during festivals like that at Olympia, or within city gymnasia, were a key feature of life in ancient Greece. From the commemoration of victorious athletes in poetry or sculpture to the archaeological remains of baths, gymnasia and stadia, surviving evidence offers plentiful testimony to the importance of athletic activity in Greek culture, and its survival well into Roman times. This book offers an introduction to the many forms that athletics took in the ancient world, and to the sources of evidence by which we can study it. It covers the less-explored periods of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds well as archaic and classical Greece. Many different aspects of athletics will be considered - not only well-known athletic festivals such as the Olympic Games, but also the place of athletic training within civic education and military training, and its integration into the bathing culture of the Roman world.

Zahra Newby is Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at University of Warwick. She is the author of articles on athletics, sport and art in the ancient world and of Greek Athletics in the Roman World: Victory and Virtue (2005).