This book is a comprehensive examination of Olympic victor lists. The origins, development, content, and structure of Olympic victor lists are explored and explained, and a number of important questions, such as the source and reliability of the year of 776 for the first Olympics, are addressed.

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 ancient sport and spectacle. Covers the Bronze Age to the Byzantine Empire Includes contributions from a range of international scholars with various Classical antiquity specialties Goes beyond the usual concentrations on Olympia and Rome to examine sport in cities and territories throughout the Mediterranean basin Features a variety of illustrations, maps, end-of-chapter references, internal cross-referencing, and a detailed index to increase accessibility and assist researchers

A comprehensive study of how and why athletic contests, a characteristic feature of ancient Greek culture, disappeared in late antiquity.

In this book, Catherine M. Keesling lends new insight into the origins of civic honorific portraits that emerged at the end of the fifth century BC in ancient Greece. Surveying the subjects, motives and display contexts of Archaic and Classical portrait sculpture, she demonstrates that the phenomenon of portrait representation in Greek culture is complex and without a single, unifying history. Bringing a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, Keesling grounds her study in contemporary texts such as Herodotus' Histories and situates portrait representation within the context of contemporary debates about the nature of arete (excellence), the value of historical commemoration and the relationship between the human individual and the gods and heroes. She argues that often the goal of Classical portraiture was to link the individual to divine or heroic models. Offering an overview of the role of portraits in Archaic and Classical Greece, her study includes local histories of the development of Greek portraiture in sanctuaries such as Olympia, Delphi and the Athenian Acropolis.

Details the role of sports in the classical world from early Greece through the late Roman and early Byzantine empires.

For instance, he shows that the four main ethnic subcategories of the ancient Greeks - Akhaians, Ionians, Aiolians, and Dorians - were not primordial survivals from a premigratory period, but emerged in precise historical circumstances during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.

The purpose of this work is to cast more light on some key aspects of the long jump and especially to fill the lacuna which has become ever more evident in the literature on the topic and is related to the kind of long-jump in the ancient pentathlon. This study is completely different or has very little in common with the theories proposed previously. For almost 200 years the long jump in the ancient pentathlon has remained a field of controversy. Scholars have admitted that the subject is confused and presents a great number of unanswered questions, essential and important for any understanding of the event: What significance can be attached to the supposed feats of the two ancient Greek athletes Chionis and Phayllus? What exactly was the long jump in the ancient pentathlon? Where did the long jump have its roots? What and where was the ancient skamma? What was the ancient bater and where was it located? Did athletes drop the halteres just before landing in the skamma? Did all athletes use the same halteres in the same games? How many attempts was each athlete allowed at the jump?