Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire

From the first to the third century AD Greek athletic culture flourished as never before and this book provides significant and exciting new readings of those developments. By drawing on a wide range of evidence it sheds important light on the most distinctive features of athletic competition and athletic education in the Roman Empire. In addition, it examines the representation of athletics within both literary and epigraphical evidence, paying close attention to the controversies such representation attracted. Above all this exploration seeks to demonstrate the way in which discussion and representation of athletics could become entangled with other areas of cultural debate. The book presents an argument for intricate and complex connections between different types of athletic representation, particularly those between ‘literary’ and epigraphical texts. It offers re-interpretations of major authors such as Lucian, Dio Chrysostom, Pausanias, Silius Italicus, Galen and Philostratus.