Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire

Description

From the first to third century AD Greek athletics flourished as never before. This book offers exciting new readings of those developments. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, it sheds new 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.

Jason Koenig 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.

From the hardback review: '... 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 From the hardback review: 'This book is the fruit of an immense amount of reading, lucidly though lengthily laid out, with generous signposting and an exemplary absence of jargon. Alongside the work of van Nijf and Zahra Newby, this book restores athletic endeavour to its rightful position in the study of Greek culture under the Roman Empire. It will be essential for anyone dealing with athletics as presented in Greek prose writing. More generally, it will be of great value to anyone interested in discourse about the Greek past in this period.' The Journal of Roman Studies