xiv, 359 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

text

unmediated

volume

Why Sport History? -- Word Games: Conceptualizing Sport and Spectacle -- Challenges: Evidence, Chronology, and Modernism -- Sports and Spectacles as Cultural Performances -- Greece and Rome: Positive and Negative Classicism -- Sports as Spectacle, Spectacles as Sport -- Mesopotamian Combat Sports an...

Men, Boys, and Erotic Pursuits -- The Coming of Age of Greek Sport -- The Olympics of Allusion and Illusion -- Modern Myths and Invented Traditions -- The Quagmire of Olympic Origins: Explanations and Excavations -- The Physical Context: Sanctuary and Facilities -- The Olympic Festival: Operation an...

Athletes, Social History, and Democratization -- The Lower Half of Society: Not Excluded But Not Competing? -- Meritocratic Athletics in Practice -- Conclusion -- The Ancient Evidence: Problems and Perspectives -- Early Greece: Epic and Myth -- Spartan Female Sport -- Athenian Girls' Races or Rites...

Roman-Hellenistic Spectacular Discourse -- The Meaning of Gladiatorial Combat: Infamy and Virtue -- Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar: Magnificence and Munificence -- Augustus: Consolidation and Imperial Rule Through Shows -- Emperors, Spectacles, and Scandals -- Days at the Track: Chariot Racing -- Imperia...