Competitive sport can incite passions, dissent, criticism, even conflict. The link between sport and various forms of criticism and dissent can be documented in most societies that have practiced sport, including the ancient Greeks. Physical education regimes, initiatory rituals that incorporated athletic elements, and competitive sport were popular and deeply embedded features of the daily life of the ancient Greeks. Some critics, however, were far from content with this state of affairs.
This essay provides an overview of the major discourses of dissent concerning Greek sport in Greco-Roman antiquity in a way that is conscious, whenever possible, of historical context, regional and diachronic variations, and authorial particularities. Two questions will inform much of the discussion that follows: why is the author or historical agent in question attacking sport and to what extent are his grievances shared by his contemporaries? Moreover, we will attempt to identify patterns, problems, and social implications behind extant instances of sport criticism, as well as survey some responses to sport detractors. Because of the inevitable complexity of personal and communal attitudes to sport, the fragmentary nature of many sources, and our limited understanding of various aspects of Greek literature and history, the answers to these questions are by necessity often incomplete, circumspect, and tentative. Nevertheless, an analysis of prominent instances of sport criticism can illuminate ideological and social facets of Greek sport.
Greeks practiced sport from at least the Bronze Age (c.3000–c.1100 BCE),1 but the evidence for Greek sport becomes significantly more extensive starting in the eighth century. The Homeric poems provide two interesting vignettes that feature organized athletic contests (the funeral games of Patroklos, Iliad 23.257–897 and the games in Phaiakia, Odyssey 8.97–255) as well as numerous passing references to sport, both competitive and casual. Sport is portrayed in the Homeric epics primarily as a worthy pastime, an extension of the network of social relations and obligations of the aristocracy as well as a domain of social distinction, on a par with military valor and political leadership skills, for the warrior ruling elite. The Homeric aristocratic ideology of sport and physical skills is best articulated in the adage uttered by Laodamas in the context of an invitation to Odysseus to participate in the games at Phaiakia: “So long as a man lives, he has no greater glory [kleos] than what he wins with the strength of his hands and the speed of his feet” (Odyssey 8.145–8, trans. D. Young). Achievement in sport, similarly to achievement on the battlefield, singles out the valorous aristocrat from the commoner and corroborates the former’s position of social ascendancy. Correlatively, a trader (i.e., not an aristocrat) is not expected to be a competent athlete (Odyssey 8.159–64). (For detailed discussion of sport in the Homeric poems, see Chapter 3 in this volume.)
While the Homeric epics have a Panhellenic outlook, in the sense that they tend to brush over local peculiarities in favor of the depiction of a culture shared by elites all over the Greek world, the emergence in the Archaic period (700–480) of poets whose work responds to more local contexts reveals a complex picture concerning attitudes to sport. In a poem from the late seventh century composed for a Spartan audience, Tyrtaeus asserts that martial valor is superior to athletic ability, physical beauty, wealth, pedigree, and eloquence. Prowess on the battlefield “is excellence [arete], it is the best and fairest [ariston kalliston te] prize that a man can attain” (Fragment 12 West, ll. 13–14). In Tyrtaeus’s classification of civic values, military valor in the service of the community takes pride of place, whereas athletic ability and other personal attributes that elevate the status of the individual, although not necessarily incompatible with fighting skills, come a distant second (Bernardini 1980: 84–7; Meier 1998: 272–90; Visa-Ondarçuhu 1999: 213–28; Hodkinson 1999: 149).
A few decades after Tyrtaeus, the reformer Solon was given extraordinary powers to deal with an acute social and economic crisis afflicting Athens. Solon’s archonship and legislation are traditionally dated to 594. Reports in late sources that attribute to the lawgiver a disparaging attitude toward athletes and athletics are usually discounted as late inventions influenced by philosophical ideas (Bernardini 1980: 87–8; Kyle 1984: 95; cf. Marcovich 1978: 25). Nonetheless, a law attributed to Solon (Plutarch Solon 23.3; Diogenes Laertius 1.55–6) specifying monetary rewards to be given by Athens to Olympic and Isthmian victors is usually accepted as genuine (Bernardini 1980: 87; Kyle 1984; Pleket 2001: 171; Mann 2001: 68–81). It is arguable that Solon’s law curtailed and standardized existing state rewards to athletic victors, in which case that law might reflect Athenian popular discontent with aristocratic athletes and their rich rewards, sentiments that Solon perhaps shared.
The theme of athletic rewards also surfaces in the work of Xenophanes, a poet active in the sixth century, who scathingly berates athletic achievements (Fragment 2 West; see Miller 2004: no. 229 for a translation). He complains that Olympic victors are glorified by their contemporaries and receive numerous prerogatives and rewards (front-row seats at public festivals, meals at public expense, valuable gifts). All that attention and outlay for athletes, Xenophanes argues, is misplaced. Athletes do not deserve the honors they receive because their physical strength and athletic skills make their communities neither well governed nor prosperous. On the contrary, owing to his sophie (a semantically nuanced term combining elements of intellectual wisdom and practical expertise, see Harris 2009: 158–63), which is superior to the physical strength of men or horses, the poet himself is more worthy of the privileges and rewards that athletic victors receive. Like Tyrtaeus, Xenophanes constructs a hierarchy of civic values in which athletic skill is subordinate to other qualities (in this case sophie). This line of thought does not rule out the right of the athletic victor to be honored and rewarded (Giannini 1982: 60); it just prescribes that such honors should not exceed the accolades and emolument bestowed to men with sophie. Moreover, the crux of the criticism in this fragment is not primarily the athletes themselves, but rather their communities and fellow citizens who elevate the value of athletic achievements to unwarranted levels and reward athletic victors in a manner that is disproportionate to their real contribution (Young 1984: 165; Kyle 1987: 127, n. 17). It is not clear if in the poem in question Xenophanes, an itinerant scholar, had a particular community in mind or whether he considered what he perceived as excessive adulation and remuneration of athletic victors a Panhellenic phenomenon. Yet it is worth noting that in addition to Xenophanes Fragment 2 and the law of Solon discussed above, there are indications that other Greek communities lavishly rewarded actual or potential athletic victors (see, for example, Ebert 1972: 251–5 on Sybaris).
To better understand the culture of athletic adulation that Xenophanes reviles one needs to read his near-contemporary Pindar, another poet, who is the main exponent of the ideology of elite athletic glorification allegedly in the service of community interests (Kurke 1991). For Pindar, mental, moral, and physical excellence are ranked equally on the same high plane (Young 2005: 26–7). Moreover, these qualities are often represented as inherited. In practice, Pindar’s wealthy clients exploited this image for their own personal advantage and often for political purposes. Presumably Xenophanes disapproved, given his assertion that advanced athletic skills do not help produce well-ordered communities. In this sense, in addition to being critical of the community for heaping excessive honors on athletes, Xenophanes should also be read in the context of a wider contemporary debate, conducted primarily within the ranks of the elites, on the meaning and value of traditional aristocratic concepts and practices, as well as on the position of the social elites vis-à-vis the lower social orders and the changing political landscape of the sixth century (Morris 2000: 171–85).
The relatively limited amount of extant, relevant evidence means that it is difficult to know if Xenophanes was something of an eccentric or was giving voice to widely shared sentiments. If Solon in fact curtailed rewards for Olympic and Isthmian victors, one might well conclude that there was support in some quarters of the citizenry of Archaic Greek communities for the resentment some intellectuals felt toward the lavish privileges awarded to athletes. But problems remain. Most importantly, the sixth century was a period of rapid, large-scale expansion of athletic activity in the Greek world (Christesen 2007). Competitive athletics became firmly established, marked by the emergence of a cycle of Panhellenic athletic contests as well as the foundation of numerous local games (see Chapter 1). At the same time, elements of the so-called gymnasium culture also came into being (Mann 1998). These developments undoubtedly presuppose a widespread popularity and approval of sport beyond the social elites who largely dominated the victor lists in the major games (Pleket 1975). The apparent increase in the popularity of sport is difficult (though not impossible) to reconcile with the idea that sport was reviled by large segments of the populace of Greek communities.2
Moreover, despite the admonitions of Tyrtaeus, competitive athletics remained a popular activity even within the ranks of Spartan elite in the Archaic period and beyond, as indicated by the Olympic victor lists and other evidence (Hodkinson 1999; Crowther 2004: 99–108, though cf. the cautionary comments in Christesen forthcoming). In the case of Solon, if one accepts that his law on state rewards for Olympic and Isthmian victors stemmed from popular discontent, that disapproval was probably directed toward aristocrats in general and the flamboyant display of their wealth, a contentious issue in the Archaic period. Disapproval was, therefore, not necessarily toward sport per se or the right of successful athletes to be rewarded. Overall, the evidence suggests that for the Archaic period at least, critics’ perceptions and agendas were not widely shared by Greeks at large. The latter thronged to Panhellenic and local athletic festivals and enjoyed the contests as spectators.
The sixth century was an era of profound change in both sport and politics. Trends toward egalitarianism and wider participation in state institutions emerged (Morris 2000: 155–98). Although these trends did not inexorably lead to some form of democracy in all parts of Greece, we should acknowledge that developments in political ideology and practices must have impacted athletic ideology. For example, some aristocratic victors emphasized the benefits that accrued to their home city through their victories (Kurke 1993). Perhaps paradoxically, some new political trends were facilitated by tyrants, who often appropriated the support of the populace, thus making the people an active agent in the political arena (Hammer 2005). Tyrants are also frequently credited with establishing or enlarging local festivals, most notably Peisistratos, who seems to have had a hand in embellishing the Panathenaic festival in Athens (Kyle 1987: 35–6). Overall, by the middle of the fifth century the expanded and more sophisticated world of interstate and local sport operated in an environment of increasing social and political complexity.
In the Classical period (480–323) and subsequent centuries, extant instances of criticisms of sport multiply and diversify, in part because of the proliferation of our source material. Whenever the available material allows, we can detect complex and multilayered perceptions of sport. Themes evident in the Archaic period, including complaints about athletes’ inadequate intellectual and military skills, continue to crop up among later critics. Often these themes are combined with physiological and physiognomic arguments, especially among philosophers and medical writers. Equally significantly, political and class considerations often appear to condition negative assessments of sport.
Although not necessarily typical in the Greek world, Athens is a good case in point. By the middle of the fifth century Athens had several festivals with programs that included competitive athletics, and more were added over the course of time (Kyle 1987: 32–53; Osborne 2010: 325–40). Moreover, iconographic and literary sources document activities in Athenian gymnasia and palaistrai. (See Chapter 19 for definitions of these terms.) Such evidence suggests that in ancient Athens, especially after the middle of the sixth century, participating in and watching sport was a widespread, socially accepted activity, and that athletes enjoyed a significant degree of popularity and social visibility.
Like the Archaic critics, most Athenian detractors of sport from the Classical period are selectively critical. For the most part they attack particular athletic practices, habits of athletes, and the ways in which the community perceived and honored athletic victory. Euripides, in his Autolykos (Fragment 282 Nauck), echoes Xenophanes in deriding the custom of rewarding athletes lavishly while neglecting wise and moderate men who are useful to their cities (Marcovich 1977; Iannucci 1998; see Miller 2004: no. 230 for a translation). In the same fragment, Euripides also scorns athletes as unfit for the military defense of the city, echoing a complaint we have already encountered in the work of Tyrtaeus. Socrates, in Plato’s Apology (36d–7a; see Miller 2004: no. 231 for a translation), claims that he is more deserving of free meals at public expense than any equestrian Olympic champion. Isocrates (4.1–2, 15.250; cf. Epistles 8.5), repeating the cliché that pits athletes versus intellectuals, castigates cities for rewarding the former at the expense of the latter.
Aristophanes is a special case that needs to be treated with caution (Kyle 1987: 131–4). He often parodies and criticizes athletic practices for satirical effect. Yet the popularity of his plays must lead us to assume that at least some of the views articulated in his jokes were shared by members of his audiences. As was the case with other authors, Aristophanes at times portrays sport as a folly unsuitable for a sensible, mature man (Clouds 413–20). Playing on one of his favorite themes, Aristophanes contrasts the good old days with the degenerate present, and often depicts the Athenian youth of his own day as unfit weaklings compared to their robust, trained ancestors (Frogs 1088). In the same passage (Frogs 1087–98), Aristophanes vividly describes an untrained torch racer in the Panathenaic Games hobbling along while being physically abused by the spectators.
Aristophanes’ portrayal of the inept runner is also noteworthy for its focus on the limitations of the athlete’s body. The untrained athlete in question is described as “hunched” and “pale.” These references are symptomatic of a wider discourse emerging in the fifth century on athletic training, eating habits, and bodies. Although aspects of this debate are detectable up through Late Antiquity (e.g., Galen Protrepticus 9–14; Philostratus Gymnastikos 44; Athenaeus 10.412d–13c), the sources suggest that the excesses of the athletic body were intensely debated in Classical Athens. Several authors identify a voracious appetite as a well-known attribute of athletes. In Aristophanes (Peace 33–5) to eat like a wrestler is synonymous with gluttony. At the beginning of his tirade against athletes Euripides (Fragment 282 Nauck, ll. 4–6) singles out athletes’ gluttony as the main reason for their inability to achieve a happy life; they are slaves to their mouths and stomachs. Similarly, in Euripides’ Antiope (Fragment 20 Kambitsis), those who lack wealth and overindulge in physical training have unbridled appetites and thus make bad citizens. Achaios, a tragic poet contemporary with Euripides, also associates athletic exercise with overeating and the athletic body with luxury (Fragments 3–4 Snell). (On the excesses and dangers of the athletic diet, see also Xenophon Memorabilia 3.14.3; Plato Republic 338c–d; Aristotle Politics 1338b40–9a10; and Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1106b.)
These views seem to have been influenced by the principles and findings of the medical profession. In the Hippocratic corpus, which for the most part contains medical texts from the Classical period, diet and exercise are two cornerstones of healing. Furthermore, references to athletes and athletic practices are often used as case studies to elucidate techniques of diagnosis and cure (Visa 1992). The dictum, “The condition of the athlete is not natural. A healthy state is superior in every respect” (Hippocrates On Nutriment 34), sometimes quoted as a condensed version of medical views on overspecialized athletes (Marcovich 1977: 54 and 1978: 26), comes from a treatise most probably written in the third century or later (see von Staden 1989: 77). Nevertheless, other Hippocratic works dated to the Classical period also reveal a preoccupation with the exaggerations of athletic diets, especially the overconsumption of meat (see, for example, Regimen in Health 7). This state of affairs, in conjunction with overspecialization in training, was believed to result in the disfigurement of athletes’ bodies (Hippocrates Aphorisms 1.3; cf. Xenophon Symposium 2.17 and Aristotle On the Generation of Animals 768b29–33). Moreover, according to Plato, athletic diets and training induce drowsiness and sloth, and as a result athletes “sleep their lives away” (Republic 403e–4a; see also Lovers 132c); their habits should, therefore, be forsaken by those who, owing to their station in life, need to be active and vigilant.
Certainly there is a degree of rhetorical exaggeration in all this, but the thematic and chronological proximity of these arguments cannot be coincidental. How can this preoccupation of Classical Athenian authors with the excesses and distortions of the athletic body be explained? The stereotype of the gluttonous, overspecialized athlete who is skillful only in sport is related to the antithesis between athletic training and military skill that goes back at least as far as Tyrtaeus. It is also part of a wider discourse on gastric insatiability (Gargiulo 1982; Steiner 2002). Yet it appears that in Classical Athens the image of the meat-devouring, disfigured athletic body acquires further connotations that contrast it to the stereotype of the adequately trained, militarily efficient, and politically involved body of the ideal citizen. Concerns about athletic diets and intensive training may reflect a realization that active, full-time athletes had little choice but to abstain from many aspects of familial, social, and political life in order to train for competition (Plato Laws 807c). Such considerations converged and shaped an image of an overfed, overtrained, and by implication civically inefficient athletic body, which had an affinity with the body of the apragmon, that is, the indifferent, often socially isolated, and hence civically dysfunctional citizen (Carter 1986; Christ 2006). In other words, for some in democratic Athens, the physically transgressive athletic body partly embodied the qualities of the anticitizen.
The preceding discussion strongly suggests that in the Greek world sport practices, perceptions, and representations were intimately bound up with wider social and political issues. Sport often functioned as a symbol of inequality and difference, and at times political conflicts and class considerations elicited an opposition to particular sport practices and resulted in attempts to redefine the ideological boundaries of those practices. Hippotrophy (the keeping of horses for display or competition) and horse racing in Classical Athens offer a case in point. In opposition to those who extolled the honor that horse racing victories bestowed on the city, some Athenian voters opted to ostracize members of well-heeled families on the grounds of their horse breeding. Meanwhile playwrights and orators ridiculed and deprecated the obsession of the upper class with horses (for testimonia, see Golden 1997 and Papakonstantinou 2003).
These oppositional discourses on the value of horse breeding and equestrian victories were cogently articulated in the case of Alcibiades’ Olympic triumphs. In the Olympics of 416, equestrian teams owned by Alcibiades, at that time a young and rising Athenian politician from a wealthy family, took first, second, and fourth place in the four-horse chariot race.3 Alcibiades himself, in a speech to the Athenian people sitting in the Assembly, emphasized the benefits that accrued to the city from his equestrian victory at Olympia (Thucydides 6.16.2). Moreover, in a speech written for Alcibiades’ son, Isocrates unequivocally presents Alcibiades’ proclivity for equestrian contests and his quest for Olympic glory as tokens of social elitism when he claims that Alcibiades disdained athletic contests on account of the low birth of some athletes and thus pursued horse breeding, which was accessible only to the wealthy (16.33; see Miller 2004: no. 67 for a translation). Isocrates was not alone in employing elitist language in connection with sport. A few decades before, a conservative author (Old Oligarch Constitution of the Athenians 1.13, 2.10) described the athletic practices of Athenians in terms of class divisions. He claimed that the rabble had appropriated aristocrats’ sport activities and symbols. He also asserted that the populace required the rich to subsidize their festivals and athletic facilities, and that the poor did all they could to enrich themselves at the expense of the wealthy.
Such select critiques of athletic practices, even though they did not comprehensively aim at the entire range of sport activities, are nonetheless significant because they reveal aspects of the ideological exploitation of sport in the context of power struggles in democratic Athens. At stake were contentious issues such as the proper way to expend one’s wealth, and the degree to which certain groups could derive social distinction through sport. Hence the attacks on the value of equestrian victories or the resentment over the engagement of the populace with sport were not, as has been claimed (Kyle 2007: 173), disjointed comments used mostly for rhetorical effect. The rhetoric about sport was part and parcel of a wider debate on elite and popular power in democratic Athens (Ober 1989). Hence attacks on elite hippotrophy act cumulatively in conjunction with other invectives against elite sport, as well as with other facets of elite and middling ideologies.
A unilateral focus on critics might easily mislead; despite the ideological controversies concerning sport, Athens honored its numerous victors at the Panhellenic games with monetary prizes, free meals for life, front-row seats at public festivals, and possibly more (Kyle 1987: 21–2, 145–7; Morrissey 1978). In addition, the extensive Athenian calendar of athletic contests is another indication of the popularity of sport in Classical Athens. Even though some accepted the stereotype of the self-indulgent, civically useless athlete, there should be little doubt that most Athenians enjoyed athletic spectacles and treated successful athletes with respect rather than contempt. The case of Athens underscores why it is critical to evaluate eulogies and diatribes about sport in connection with a broader nexus of athletic practices, ideological conflicts, and social relationships.
The territorial expansion of the Greek-speaking world in the Hellenistic period (323–31) brought a geographical and quantitative proliferation of athletic facilities and competitive sport. The situation was similar after the Romans took over the Greek-speaking East. As might be expected, in shifting political and social environments the meaning of sport also changed in some respects. These changes are partly reflected in the criticisms against athletes and sport that surface in sources of this era.
A number of authors attribute critical views on sport to prominent figures of this period, including Alexander the Great. Plutarch, writing in the second century CE (Alexander 4.5–6; Moralia 179d, 331b), claims that Alexander disliked athletes and that he expressed a studied disinterest in competing at Olympia. Moreover, according to the same author (Moralia 180a, 334d), Alexander did not consider sport conducive to military effectiveness, a view that Plutarch attributes to other prominent Classical and Hellenistic figures as well (Moralia 192c–d; Philopoemen 3.2–4). Even if one accepts the attribution of such views to Alexander and other Hellenistic leaders, it is immediately obvious that in an era of vast empires and mercenary armies the issue of the military inefficiency of athletes had a different import from the sentiments expressed by Tyrtaeus or Euripides, both of whom were active during periods when most soldiers came from among the ranks of citizens. Moreover, it is worth noting that Plutarch himself and other late sources record that Alexander respected and honored athletic victors (Plutarch Alexander 34.2; Arrian Anabasis 2.15.2; Pausanias 7.27.7). Furthermore, during his campaign in the East he sponsored several athletic contests. These contests had more than mere entertainment value; they promoted integration and morale in the Macedonian camp and represented Greek culture in the newly conquered lands. (On Alexander’s views on sport, see Adams 2007 and, in this volume, Chapter 22.)
Hence Plutarch’s reports that Alexander disdained sport may tell us more about Plutarch himself and his era than Alexander’s actual views on the subject. Recent work (König 2005; Newby 2005) has highlighted the complex manner in which literary works of the Roman Imperial period (31 BCE–476 CE) represented sport, especially events and personalities of bygone eras. Some authors of that period continue to attack athletes on the basis of long-established themes (e.g., overeating, bodily deformities, incompatibility with military pursuits, worthlessness for state affairs). But there are also some marked differences and novel topics of denigration, for example, the claim made by some authors that athletes are unfit for any kind of intellectual work because they are mentally incapable of it (Dio Chrysostom Orations 8.14; Galen Protrepticus 9–13).
Certain authors were not monolithic in their views. Dio has positive things to say in other parts of his work about sport, an inconsistency that has been explained (König 2005: 97–157) on the basis of an unresolved tension over the attainment of athletic beauty and philosophical virtue. Moreover, Galen’s vitriolic attacks on the mental abilities of athletes and his categorization of them as performers of a base and dishonorable profession may have been driven in part by the fact that Galen, himself a medical doctor, had a strong antipathy for athletic trainers (König 2005: 254–300; cf. Pleket 1975: 82–4). Yet even if the image of the dimwitted athlete was one largely confined to literary discourses, it is still a notable departure from earlier arguments that maintained that athletes could not pursue intellectual matters because their lives were engrossed in training and competition (Young 2005: 30).
Two obvious and vexing questions arise out of the complex network of anti-athletic discourses outlined in this essay: what did the athletes themselves think of the attacks leveled at them and how did they respond to these challenges? For the Hellenistic and Roman periods, numerous inscriptions honoring the lives and deeds of particular athletes provide an indirect glimpse into the convictions of the real sport protagonists. These inscriptions are often formulaic, panegyrical, and at times verbose (Moretti 1953; Robert 1968; König 2005: 102–32). But to a certain extent they do show distinct thematic patterns, and therefore they can serve as responses to the arguments raised by critics. The inscriptions emphasize the strength and grace (both elements reinforced by athletic statuary and practices in the gymnasion, see Dickie 1993) of the athletic body, the physical and often moral magnitude of athletic victory, as well as the glory bestowed on the successful athlete. Recent studies (van Nijf 1999, 2001, 2003) have demonstrated that, beyond mere personal and familial pride, athletic training and performance were key elements in the self-representation of elites as well as in the process of shaping a wider Greek cultural identity in Greek communities in the eastern Mediterranean during the Roman period. Contrary to some critics, the athletic body was seen as representing key civic values such as manliness and virtue.
Echoes of ancient tirades about Greek sport practices and the athletic body survive to our own day through the influence of Christianity. Aware of the omnipresence of sport, early Christians appropriated Greek agonistic language and imagery (Pfitzner 1967; Merkelbach 1975: 108–36; Koch 2007), which they combined with attacks on the pagan context of Greek sport. They also propagated principles of bodily discipline and renunciation (Feichtinger and Seng 2004). For them, the body was subservient to intellect and soul and often an impediment to the believer’s salvation. Understandably, these notions contributed to the abolition of Greek agonistic festivals. (On Roman-era criticisms of sport, including more on Christian views on sport, see Chapter 41.)
Despite its enormous popularity, over the centuries Greek sport attracted its share of criticism, sometimes from notable public figures and intellectuals. The strictures aimed at athletes and sport were related to pressing issues of the day (e.g., military effectiveness, governance, social distinction) or the intellectual and professional agenda of the author. There is evidence to suggest that in certain cases some of the arguments in question were accepted by some segments of the population. In other instances anti-athletic discourses seem to have been confined largely to literary, rhetorical, and scientific debates. Rhetorical exaggerations aside, these debates provide invaluable insights into facets of a continually evolving ideological contestation and negotiation over the meaning and social value of Greek sport in Greco-Roman antiquity.
NOTES
1 All dates are BCE unless otherwise indicated. On sport in the Bronze Age, see Chapter 2 in this volume.
2 There has been an extended scholarly debate over the extent to which sport was or was not dominated by societal elites in the Late Archaic and Early Classical periods. That debate has tended to focus on the situation in Athens, primarily for evidentiary reasons. Pritchard (2003, 2009) has argued that sport was largely the preserve of a small, very wealthy elite straight through the fifth century. Fisher (1998, 2011) and Christesen (2012: 164–83) have argued that starting in the sixth century males from prosperous but not extremely affluent households began participating in sport in large numbers.
3 In some versions of the story, Alcibiades’ horses won first, second, and third. See Plutarch Alcibiades 11.1–3 and Thucydides 6.16.2.
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GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
Müller 1995 examines the evidence for Greek and Roman critics of ancient sport. Young 2005 is a stimulating discussion of select sources bearing on the opposition of mind versus the athletic body in the ancient Greek world. Bernardini 1980 and Visa-Ondarçuhu 1999 are useful overviews of the evidence from the Archaic and Early Classical periods. Kyle 1987: 124–54 discusses Athenian critics of sport. König 2005 and Newby 2005 highlight the intertwined and complex nature of sport discourses during the Roman Imperial period. Crowther 2004 contains a number of essays relevant to the subject matter of this chapter.
Several articles provide detailed, insightful discussions of sport criticisms by particular ancient authors; these articles include, but are by no means limited to, Marcovich 1977 and 1978; Giannini 1982; Golden 1997; Iannucci 1998; and Harris 2009.