Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World

Preface and Acknowledgments ix
 
List of Figures xii
 
List of Maps xv
 
List of Tables xvi
 
Introduction: Ancient Sport History 1
 
Why Sport History? 4
 
Word Games: Conceptualizing Sport and Spectacle 7
 
Challenges: Evidence, Chronology, and Modernism 9
 
Sports and Spectacles as Cultural Performances 14
 
Greece and Rome: Positive and Negative Classicism 15
 
Sports as Spectacle, Spectacles as Sport 16
 
1 Origins and Essences: Early Sport and Spectacle 22
 
Mesopotamian Combat Sports and Running 24
 
Egypt: Hunting and Sporting Pharaohs 26
 
Royal Hunts as a Near Eastern Tradition 32
 
States and Sports, Empires and Spectacles 33
 
2 Late Bronze Age Minoans, Hittites, and Mycenaeans 37
 
Minoan Performances: Rites, Contests, or Spectacles? 37
 
Hittite Contests? 44
 
Mycenaean Contests? 46
 
A Sporting Mediterranean World 49
 
3 Sport in Homer: Contests, Prizes, and Honor 53
 
Homer and His World 54
 
Values and Competition 55
 
Prizes and Spectatorship 56
 
Funeral Games for Patroklos: Prizes and Reconciliation 56
 
The Odyssey: Sport and Returning Home 63
 
Epic Sport as Spectacle 67
 
4 Archaic Greece: Athletics in an Age of Change 70
 
Athletic Festivals: Types and Terms 72
 
Factors and Features in the Growth of Athletics 73
 
Gymnasiums, Hoplites, and Society 81
 
Nudity, Status, and Democracy 82
 
Men, Boys, and Erotic Pursuits 85
 
The Coming of Age of Greek Sport 87
 
5 In Search of the Ancient Olympics 91
 
The Olympics of Allusion and Illusion 92
 
Modern Myths and Invented Traditions 95
 
The Quagmire of Olympic Origins: Explanations and Excavations 97
 
6 Ancient Olympia and Its Games 107
 
The Physical Context: Sanctuary and Facilities 108
 
The Olympic Festival:

Donald G. Kyle is Professor, former Chair of History, and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is the author of Athletics in Ancient Athens (1987), Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (1998), Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World (Wiley-Blackwell 2007); and co-editor (with Paul Christesen) of A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Wiley-Blackwell 2014).