Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens
Cambridge University Press, 10/11/2012
EAN 9781107007338, ISBN10: 110700733X
Hardcover, 261 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Athenian democracy may have opened up politics to every citizen, but it had no impact on participation in sport. The city's sportsmen continued to be drawn from the elite, and so it comes as a surprise that sport was very popular with non-elite citizens of the classical period, who rewarded victorious sportsmen lavishly and created an unrivalled program of local sporting festivals on which they spent staggering sums of money. They also shielded sportsmen from the public criticism which was otherwise normally directed towards the elite and its conspicuous activities. This book is a bold and novel exploration of this apparent contradiction, which examines three of the fundamental aspects of Athens in the classical period - democratic politics, public commitment to sport and constant warfare - and is essential reading for all of those who are interested in Greek sport, Athenian democracy and its waging of war.
1. Problems, models and sources
2. Athletic participation and education
3. The democratic support of athletics
4. Athletics in satyric drama
5. The common culture of athletics and war
6. The democratisation of war
7. Conclusion
athletic ephebes.
Advance praise: 'This is a vigorous and valuable book, supported by a thorough familiarity with the ancient evidence and with modern scholarship. It is also timely, as our democracies (surely the most sports-mad societies since the Greeks) return to the use of war as an instrument of policy.' Mark Golden, University of Winnipeg