Presenting a survey of sports in ancient Greece, this work describes ancient sporting events and games. It considers the role of women and amateurs in ancient athletics, and explores the impact of these games on art, literature and politics.

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.

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.

Introduction -- Athletes, Festivals, and The Crown Games -- Olympia and the Olympian Games -- Nemea and the Nemean Games -- Isthmia and the Isthmian Games -- Delphi and the Pythian Games -- Crowned Champions -- Conclusions.

Intended for readers at all levels--from student to classics buff to serious scholar--this sourcebook looks at sport and recreation in ancient Greece through vivid new translations of contemporary accounts. Covering such diverse topics as the ancient Olympic games, athletic attire, women in sports, hunting and fishing, and weight lifting, the book provides an excellent springboard for the study of ancient Greek history and classical literature. The book includes study questions after each translated passage and a rich assortment of photographs of ancient art and artifacts depicting players, events, and equipment.

Excerpt from Athletics and Games of the Ancient Greeks Few kinds of labor develop the body in a symmetrical manner. This is true even in an elementary division of labor. The carpenter and the blacksmith usually have strong, large shoulders and arms, but small and weak legs. The farmer, from excessive bending over his work, loses, in a greater or less degree, his elasticity of body, and often becomes stoop-shouldered. If such defects result from the more primitive forms of labor, it is not at all strange that the laborers of the modern industrial world show bodily peculiarities and variations that correspond, in a marked degree, to their respective trades. A well-known teacher of gymnastics in a New England college has declared himself able to designate the various occupations of laborers in a Boston Labor Day parade, without reference to any sign or banner, merely by inspecting their carriage and physical peculiarities. It may, therefore, be asserted that, while labor involving muscular exertion, if performed in healthful surroundings, supplies the conditions essential to good digestion and assimilation, to a more complete respiration, and to the maintenance of healthy nerves, yet, only rarely, if ever, does it tend to develop the ideal body. Physical culture differs from labor. Labor, having the design to produce a change in the world of matter outside the body, is not deliberately modified to suit the requirements of perfect physical development. Of all the peoples, whose deeds have been recorded, the Greeks alone made physical culture a matter of study. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.