E-Book Overview
Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z covers an extraordinarily wide range of Greek and Roman sporting activities. Arranged in an easy-to-use dictionary format, this volume includes more than 700 entries discussing ancient athletes, festivals, important sites, equipment and concepts. The approach throughout is comprehensive yet succinct, with key topics, such as athletic festivals, chariot racing, prizes and the role of women receiving more detailed discussion. Each entry concludes with pointers to the most important sources of information, both ancient and modern. The places mentioned in the text are picked out on a useful map, and a timeline of significant developments and events is also included. Reliable, enjoyable, and up-to-date, this handy work of reference will suit readers from student level upwards.
E-Book Content
SPORT IN THE ANCIENT WORLD FROM A TO Z
THE ANCIENT WORLD FROM A TO Z What were the ancient fashions in men’s shoes? How did you cook a tunny or spice a dormouse? What was the daily wage of a Syracusan builder? What did Romans use for contraception? This new Routledge series will provide the answers to such questions, which are often overlooked by standard reference works. Volumes will cover key topics in ancient culture and society – from food, sex and sport to money, dress and domestic life. Each author will be an acknowledged expert in their field, offering readers vivid, immediate and academically sound insights into the fascinating details of daily life in antiquity. The main focus will be on Greece and Rome, though some volumes will also encompass Egypt and the Near East. The series will be suitable both as background for those studying classical subjects and as enjoyable reading for anyone with an interest in the ancient world. Already published: Food in the Ancient World from A to Z Andrew Dalby Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z Mark Golden Forthcoming titles: Sex in the Ancient World from A to Z John Younger Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z Geoffrey Arnott Money in the Ancient World from A to Z Andrew Meadows Domestic Life in the Ancient World from A to Z Ruth Westgate and Kate Gilliver Dress in the Ancient World from A to Z Lloyd Llewellyn Jones et al.
SPORT IN THE ANCIENT WORLD FROM A TO Z Mark Golden
First published 2004 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” # 2004 Mark Golden All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-49732-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-56957-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–24881–7 (Print Edition)
Contents
Introduction vi Acknowledgements xii Abbreviations and short titles xiii Some important dates xvii Map of the Greek and Roman world xxii
S P O RT IN T H E A N C I E N T WO R L D
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I n t ro d u c t i o n
As to Hercules and Theseus, they were nothing to me. They had sport, and never learned to write a book-keeping hand. (George Eliot, Middlemarch [New York 1910] 604) Who know