Gilbert West's Dissertation on the Olympick Games (1749): ‘Established upon great Political Views’

Abstract

AbstractGilbert West's Dissertation on the Olympick Games is the first modern history of the ancient games. The Dissertation incorporates a bibliographic essay, historical conjecture and narrative, and descriptions of the venue, athletes and events at Olympia. West considered the ancient games a political institution foremost, and demonstrated the importance of seeing the games as an elemental institution embedded in and revealing of the larger political culture of ancient Greece. With the Dissertation, West joined British Classical scholars, translators and literary figures who found in ancient Greek liberty, virtue and patriotic valour models for the British nation in the eighteenth century.