Greek Athletics in the Roman World

The Greeks' fascination with athletics in the gymnasium and festivals, such as the Olympic Games is well known. This book looks at the art associated with Greek athletics to see what it meant to both Greeks and Romans during the period of the Roman Empire. It argues that athletics continued to act as a crucial sign of Greek identity. The enduring importance of Greek athletic training and competition during the period of the Roman Empire has been a neglected subject in past scholarship on the ancient world. This book examines the impact that Greek athletics had on the Roman world, approaching it through the plentiful surviving visual evidence, viewed against textual and epigraphic sources. It shows that the traditional picture of Roman hostility has been much exaggerated. Instead Greek athletics came to exercise a profound influence upon Roman spectacle and bathing culture. In the Greek east of the empire too, athletics continued to thrive, providing Greek cities with a crucial means of asserting their cultural identity while also accommodating Roman imperial power.