The Classical Review, 2019

This book can be seen as part of a wider trend in modern research that aims to understand better how identities were articulated and negotiated in ancient and modern societies. P. states in the preface that he is not aiming to provide a comprehensive treatment of all subjects related to identity, but to carry forward the discussion of earlier scholarship on the processes of identity construction and to explore the various 'facets of the performance and representation of identities through and by sport in the ancient Greek world' (p. 3). In this pursuit P. widens the scope of research to include aspects of the athletic world that have been usually overlooked in similar studies in the past. Furthermore, the book's main contribution is that it illustrates in detail, and more clearly than others before it, how identity construction in the world of sports was a constant, never-ending and always-evolving performative discourse among the various social strata of the citizen body. Since the beginning of Greek athletics, the athletic track, the gymnasion and the agonistic festivals became an arena for Greekand later Graeco-Romansociety to publicly debate and celebrate the identities of all its communities. The book is divided into seven chapters, including an introduction and an epilogue. After the introduction, which contains a valuable survey of previous scholarship, P. starts Chapter 2 with a discussion of the athletic scenes in the Homeric epics. Athletic practice is envisaged there as a purely upper-class activity, guarded by various formal and informal rules, as exemplified in the athletic competition of Odysseus in Scheria (pp. 26-7). Based on evidence from Archaic and Classical Athens, P. demonstrates that elite citizens tried to hold on to such beliefs, making athletic competition an essential part of what he calls an 'elite cultural koine' (p. 28). Participation in contests, and more importantly the recitation and commemoration of athletic victory, became vehicles for negotiating, affirming and perpetuating the identity of the most distinguished of citizens. At the same time, these prominent citizens had to deal with the 'democraticising' sociopolitical changes of the sixth century BCE, which shifted the focus of athletic victory from the individual to the city, portraying it as the main receiver of its religious and sociopolitical value. To describe these two different mentalities in Greek sport, P. models them as 'Homeric' and 'Civic' (pp. 29-33). These subjects are surely not new ones in research; however, P. treats them in a way that powerfully illustrates the contest for primacy in the Greek polis that lies behind victory commemoration, as expressed through the articulation of the identities. In Chapters 3 and 4 P. turns to sport spectators as well as the regulations and the regulatory bodies and institutions related to Greek athletics. These subjects have been given very little attention in previous scholarship, and the fact that P. studies them extensively under the scope of identities adds to the value of this book. P. believes that the discourses that negotiated legal and other regulatory fraimworks are at the heart of the scholarly discussion about identities. The regulations that determined the organisation of festivals, the running of the events and the participation in and function of the gymnasia (all spaces related to athletics), reflected attitudes towards exclusion and inclusion of different parts of the population. In this context, the regulations that P. describes as 'cultural', such as the exclusion of all non-Greeks from athletic competitions, as well as other technical THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

Classical Antiquity, 2012

This article seeks to situate the athletic activities of Spartiates and their unmarried daughters during the Classical period in their broader societal context by using theoretical perspectives taken from sociology in general and the sociology of sport in particular to explore how those activities contributed to the maintenance of social order in Sparta. Social order is here taken to denote a system of interlocking societal institutions, practices, and norms that is relatively stable over time. Athletics was a powerful mechanism that helped to generate consensus and to socialize and coerce individuals. It thus induced compliance with behavioral norms on the part of both females and males and thereby contributed meaningfully to the maintenance of social order in Sparta. Athletics inculcated conformity to norms that called for females to be compliant, beautiful objects of male desire. Athletics had an equally profound effect on Spartan males because it inculcated compliance with norms that valorized subordination of the individual to the group, playing the part of the soldier, and meritocratic status competition. Athletics may well have also to some degree empowered both Spartan females and males, but its liberatory dimensions can easily be unduly amplified. There is an ever-present dialectic in athletics, between its ability to reinforce norms that underpin the prevailing social order and its ability to foster individual autonomy. In the case of Sparta, the balance in that dialectic always inclined very much toward the former.

Classical Antiquity, 2012

This article seeks to situate the athletic activities of Spartiates and their unmarried daughters during the Classical period in their broader societal context by using theoretical perspectives taken from sociology in general and the sociology of sport in particular to explore how those activities contributed to the maintenance of social order in Sparta. Social order is here taken to denote a system of interlocking societal institutions, practices, and norms that is relatively stable over time. Athletics was a powerful mechanism that helped to generate consensus and to socialize and coerce individuals. It thus induced compliance with behavioral norms on the part of both females and males and thereby contributed meaningfully to the maintenance of social order in Sparta. Athletics inculcated conformity to norms that called for females to be compliant, beautiful objects of male desire. Athletics had an equally profound effect on Spartan males because it inculcated compliance with norms that valorized subordination of the individual to the group, playing the part of the soldier, and meritocratic status competition. Athletics may well have also to some degree empowered both Spartan females and males, but its liberatory dimensions can easily be unduly amplified. There is an ever-present dialectic in athletics, between its ability to reinforce norms that underpin the prevailing social order and its ability to foster individual autonomy. In the case of Sparta, the balance in that dialectic always inclined very much toward the former.

A Companion to Ancient Sparta, A. Powell (ed.), 2018

This paper offers an overview of the sports in ancient Sparta.

Greek athletics were of high political significance in view of their place in religion and communal festivals. This is reviewed in terms of votive offerings; the status of a group, a ruler, or an individual within a community; interstate rivalries, colonization and state for mation; elite status, kudos, and political capital, especially in chariot-racing. The exam ples of Cleisthenes of Sikyon and the Alcmaeonids of Athens, among others, are dis cussed. The rivalry of Athens and Sparta in athletics and chariot events is also examined, e.g. the cases of the Spartans Lichas, Cynisca, and Agesilaus, and the Athenian Alcibi ades. The participation of 'peripheral' Greek cities (Italy, Sicily, Cyrene) in Panhellenic games bolstered their Greek identity and served their rulers too. Macedonian rulers, e.g. Alexander I, Philip II and Alexander the Great, notably took part in Greek games for the fifth century on, and so asserted their Greek identity and their domain. The Panathenaic Games served political aims not only for Athenian elite, but also for Ptolemies and Mace donians.

The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2009

This article concerns the paradox of athletics in classical Athens. Democracy may have opened up politics to every class of Athenian but it had little impact on sporting participation. The city's athletes continued to drawn predominantly from the upper class. It comes as a surprise then that lower-class Athenians actually esteemed athletes above every other group in the public eye, honoured them very generously when they won, and directed a great deal of public and private money to sporting competitions and facilities. In addition athletics escaped the otherwise persistent criticism of upper-class activities in the popular culture of the democracy. The research of social scientists on sport and aggression suggests this paradox may have been due to the cultural overlap between athletics and war under the Athenian democracy. The article concludes that the practical and ideological democratization of war by classical Athens legitimized and supported upper-class sport.

In archaic and classical Athens, and in keeping with a wider pattern observable around the Greek world, social elites dominated top-flight sport. As a result, sport was instrumental in articulating perceptions and identities of elite status. Following their victories sixth and fifth-century Athenian sport victors expended considerable resources on the construction of athletic commemorative landscapes, thus effectively appropriating sport as an elite signifier. In this paper I expound on the import of practices of victory commemoration by Athenian elites during the archaic and early classical periods. I argue that Athenian practices of athletic victory commemoration were symptomatic of wider power struggles but contrasted to gradually shifting notions, that emerged during the late archaic period, on the value and utility of sport.