From the first to third century AD Greek athletics flourished as never before. This book offers exciting readings of those developments. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, it sheds light on practices of athletic competition and athletic education in the Roman Empire. In addition it examines some of the ways in which athletic activity was represented within different texts and contexts. Most importantly, the book shows how discussion and representation of athletics could become entangled with many other areas of cultural debate, and used as a vehicle for many different varieties of authorial self-presentation and cultural self-scrutiny. It also argues for complex connections between different areas of athletic representation, particularly between literary and epigraphical texts. It offers re-interpretations of a number of major authors, especially Lucian, Dio Chrysostom, Pausanias, Silius Italicus, Galen and Philostratus.
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1. Introduction; 2. Lucian and Anacharsis: gymnasion education in the Greek city; 3. Models for virtue: Dio's Melankomas and the athletic body; 4. Pausanias and Olympic panhellenism; 5. Silius Italicus and the athletics of Rome; 6. Athletes and doctors: Galen's agonistic medicine; 7. Philostratus' Gymnasticus and the rhetoric of the athletic body; Conclusion.
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Review of the hardback: '… an illuminating and well-written guide to a period of great interest and importance for the understanding of the history of athletics.' Journal of Classics Teaching
Examination of Greek athletics in the Roman Empire and how they were represented in the literature of the period.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780521070089
Publisert
2008-07-31
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
636 gr
Høyde
230 mm
Bredde
150 mm
Dybde
25 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
420

Forfatter

Biographical note

Jason König is Lecturer in Greek and Classical Studies at the University of St. Andrews. He has written articles on a wide range of Greek authors from the Imperial period.