Contents:
Tim Cornell. Men of Bronze.
Donald Kagan. A Companion to the Punic Wars. Dexter Hoyos. Roger Dunkle. Religions of Rome: Volume 1, A History. Mary Beard. Classical Archaeology. Susan E. Greece in the Making BC. Robin Osborne. A Companion to Archaic Greece. Kurt A. A Critical History of Early Rome. Gary Forsythe. A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. John Marincola. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus. Karl Galinsky. Greek History: The Basics.
Blood in the Arena. Alison Futrell. The Gymnasium of Virtue. Nigel M. The Victor's Crown. David Potter. A Companion to Ancient History. Andrew Erskine. Alexander the Great. Ian Worthington. Waldemar Heckel. Hellenistic and Roman Sparta. Paul Cartledge. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome. Donald G. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic. Harriet I. Roman and Greek History.
Sudha Hamilton. The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World.
Glenn R. A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Joseph Roisman. Beryl Rawson. A Companion to Women in the Ancient World. Sharon L.
Enemies of Rome. Iain Ferris. Artifact and Artifice. Jonathan M. Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World. Emma Dench. Jane Gibson. Greek Sanctuaries. Robin Hagg. Ancient Coins of the Graeco-Roman World. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom.
Nov 8, A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity presents a series of essays that apply a socio-historical perspective to. A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity presents a series of essays that apply a socio-historical perspective to myriad aspects of.
If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Second edition. ISBN pbk. Sports History. K dc A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, Italy. Perhaps my youthful passions for sport and for antiquity moved me to study ancient sport. Perhaps it was useful that I played sports, enthusiastically if not that successfully.
My games certainly taught me things about myself, about life, and about human nature. I remain convinced of the value of sport, especially team sports, for the health of individuals and society. Even as a youth, however, I realized that my recreation, my fun, might be on the playground but that my future lay elsewhere. I never imagined a career applying the life of the mind to the life of the body. My generation witnessed Vietnam and the rise of modern terrorism, assassinations of inspiring leaders, the Munich Olympic massacre, Olympic boycotts and crises, and scandals of corruption and drugs in professional and college sport.
We had to ask ourselves why humans remain aggressive and violent, why sport cannot be free of politics and economics, and why being the victorious competitor or fan seems so important. My generation saw sports news grow from the back page to a whole section of the newspaper.
Sports became a larger part of the trinity of the evening newscast, and sports went from Monday Night Football and Hockey Night in Canada to whole channels of sport and more sport. Why not study things that students find interesting and relevant? We have long followed our interests e.
Spectacular sports now are more prominent than ever in our media and society. Untold millions associate the Modern Olympics, with their invented traditions and Hellenic trappings, with Ancient Greece. Images of Rome s Colosseum and Circus Maximus, of gladiators, beasts, and chariot races, remain pervasive and provocative, but are such topics beneath academics?
Do people want to understand Rome s games or just to be shocked by them? History is often ugly or sad, but our actions and performances, for good or ill, reveal our human nature. Ironically, the study of ancient sport has moved from the fringes to the mainstream of ancient studies. Sport and spectacle are ideal subjects for cultural,. Cultural discourse and the construction of social order unquestionably apply to sport and spectacle.
Academics tend to privilege the mind over the body, but the physicality and passionate competitiveness of the Greeks and Romans cannot be denied.
When Blackwell invited me to contribute a book to their Ancient Cultures series, I suggested that my Sport and Spectacle not Sports and Spectacles should go beyond Greece and include the Near East and Rome to allow me to investigate changes and continuities, contrasts, and comparisons. Deriving from my years of teaching and researching ancient sport, this book contains both new research and echoes of some of my previous works in reduced or revised forms.
I hope that whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is definitely not a definitive work but rather an overview with a central theme and related sub-arguments. The scope is very broad, and this active field is still unfolding. Though not intended solely as a textbook, the work may have some value in the now proliferating courses on ancient sport.
The notes and bibliography are selective, concentrating on reasonably accessible publications in English. Good bibliographical aids exist, and scholars now can pursue leads electronically. I want to make a case for the value of studying ancient sport, and I want to help non-specialist readers and undergraduates think more or in new ways about sport, spectacle, and antiquity.
Translations of ancient works are mostly from the Loeb Classical Library and S. Miller s sourcebook Ancient Greek names and places generally are transliterated unless there is a well-known Latin form. Acknowledgements and thanks are in order. I greatly appreciate my colleagues with similar interests, including S.