The Pentathlon Of The Ancient World

The pentathlon, comprising competition in the discus, javelin, long jump, sprint, and wrestling, was hailed as the ultimate test of athletic versatility and remained a staple of the ancient Greek Olympic Games, Crown Games and Pan-Hellenic festivals for 1,200 years. Still, there is little scholarly consensus over many major aspects of the event. This detailed exploration of the ancient pentathlon discusses the nature of the spectacle, the method of determining a victor, the five sub-events and the order in which they occurred. It also chronicles the history of the event and its champions, the recognition of ancient pentathletes, and the pentathlon's 18-year modern Olympic history and its influence on its contemporary counterpart, the decathlon. A record book and glossary complete this fresh look at one of the ancient world's most renowned sporting competitions.

Concise, convincing book emphasizes relationship between Greek and Roman athletics and religion, art, and education. Colorful descriptions of the pentathlon, foot-race, wrestling, boxing, ball playing, and more. 137 black-and-white illustrations.

The second edition of Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World updates Donald G. Kyle’s award-winning introduction to this topic, covering the Ancient Near East up to the late Roman Empire. • Challenges traditional scholarship on sport and spectacle in the Ancient World and debunks claims that there were no sports before the ancient Greeks • Explores the cultural exchange of Greek sport and Roman spectacle and how each culture responded to the other’s entertainment • Features a new chapter on sport and spectacle during the Late Roman Empire, including Christian opposition to pagan games and the Roman response • Covers topics including violence, professionalism in sport, class, gender and eroticism, and the relationship of spectacle to political structures

For more than a millennium, the ancient Olympics captured the imaginations of the Greeks, until a Christianized Rome terminated the competitions in the fourth century AD. But the Olympic ideal did not die and this book is a succinct history of the ancient Olympics and their modern resurgence. Classics professor David Young, who has researched the subject for over 25 years, reveals how the ancient Olympics evolved from modest beginnings into a grand festival, attracting hundreds of highly trained athletes, tens of thousands of spectators, and the finest artists and poets.

Here Nigel Spivey paints a portrait of the Greek Olympics as they really were--fierce contexts between bitter rivals, in which victors won kudos and rewards, and losers faced scorn and even assault. Bitterly Contested and often bloody, the ancient Olympics were no an idealistic celebration of unity, but a clash of military powers in an arena not far removed from the battlefield. The author explores what the events were, the rules for competitors, training and diet, the pervasiveness of cheating and bribery, the prizes on offer, the exclusion of "barbarians," and protocols on pederasty. He also peels back the mythology surrounding the games today and investigates where our current conception of the Olympics has come from and how the Greek notions of beauty and competitiveness have influenced our modern culture.

Sport has been practised in the Greco-Roman world at least since the second millennium BC. It was socially integrated and was practised in the context of ceremonial performances, physical education and established local and international competitions including, most famously, the Olympic Games. In recent years, the continuous re-assessment of old and new evidence in conjunction with the development of new methodological perspectives have created the need for a fresh examination of central aspects of ancient sport in a single volume. This book fills that gap in ancient sport scholarship. When did the ancient Olympics begin? How is sport depicted in the work of the fifth-century historian Herodotus? What was the association between sport and war in fifth- and fourth-century BC Athens? What were the social and political implications of the practice of Greek-style sport in third-century BC Ptolemaic Egypt? How were Roman gladiatorial shows perceived and transformed in the Greek-speaking east? And what were the conditions of sport participation by boys and girls in ancient Rome? These are some of the questions that this book, written by an international cast of distinguished scholars on ancient sport, attempts to answer. Covering a wide chronological and geographical scope (ancient Mediterranean from the early first millennium BC to fourth century AD), individual articles re-examine old and new evidence, and offer stimulating, original interpretations of key aspects of ancient sport in its political, military, cultural, social, ceremonial and ideological setting. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

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?

Présentation de l'éditeur : "This work presents a collection of texts in translation on ancient athletics in Greek and Roman history, including a wide range of topics from the Olympics to ancient conceptions of health and wellness."