Greek Athletics in the Roman Empire: Literature, Art, Identity and Culture

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 107 GREEK ATHLETICS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE: LITERATURE, ART, IDENTITY AND CULTURE Athletics andLiterature intheRomanEmpire. ByJASONKONIG. Cambridgeand New York:CambridgeUniversityPress,2005. Pp. xix + 398.Cloth,$95.00.ISBN 0-521-83845-2. GreekAthletics in theRomanWorld:Victory and Virtue.By ZAHRA NEWBY. Oxfordand New York:OxfordUniversity Press,2005. Pp. xiv+ 314.Cloth,$150.00.ISBN 0-19-927930-6. Recentlythe study of ancientathletics,once a lesser and even suspect subfield,has become attractive fortheburgeoningresearch on Greek cultureunder the Roman Empire. These two ambitious studies both derive fromBritishdissertations(Newby's with Jas Elsner,K6nig's withSimon Goldhill),and have overlappingconcentrationsand complementarystrengths.Together,K6nig's literary study,enrichedby epigraphicalevidence,and Newby's arthistorical study,enrichedby relevanttexts, reveal thesophistication and complexitiesof textualand visual representations of Greek athleticsin theEmpire.N. discusses some ofthesame authors(e.g.,Lucian,Dio, Philostratus)as K., but less extensively, and bothhave a chapteron Pausanias. N. devotes threechaptersto Rome and theWest,which K. covers in one. Convincingand extremely well-read,the authors establishsignificant reinterpretations oflaterathletic history, artand literature. Rejectinga traditionalfocus on Classical Greece and actual athleticpractices,these scholars investigatethe experiences,selfrepresentations , identifications and culturalsignificanceof athletics undertheEmpire.Chargingthatolderstudiesmade uncritical, piecemeal use oflatersources to supportscenariosof athleticdecline or Roman oppositionand corruption, theydeclarethatwe mustappreciate the contemporary culturaldiscourse and diverse agendas that inspiredand fashionedlaterathleticcommemorations and representations .Expandingon theworksofLouis Robertand recentscholarship ,1the authors show the continuingsignificanceof athletics, alteredbutstillvital,different butnotdegenerate,inthelivesoflater Greekindividuals and cities.Athletics, and notjust intellectualen1E .g.,A. Farrington, "OlympicVictorsand thePopularityoftheOlympicGames in the Imperial Period," Tyche12 (1997) 15-46; H.W. Pleket,"Mass-Sportand Local Infrastructure intheGreekCitiesofAsia Minor,"Stadion 24 (1998) 151-72;O. van Nijf, "Local Heroes: Athletics, Festivalsand EliteSelf-Fashioning in theRoman East," in S. Goldhill, ed., BeingGreekunderRome:Culture,Identity, theSecondSophistic and the Development ofEmpire (Cambridge,2001) 306-34;T.F. Scanlon,Erosand Greek Athletics (Oxford, 2002) 40-63. 108 BOOK REVIEWS deavors, remainedfundamentalto Greekethnicity and theHellenic traditionunder theEmpire.Athleticart,facilities and festivalswere popularandprominent intheself-representation ofcities, competitors, patrons and intellectuals.Simultaneouslyattractiveand controversial ,athleticswere a centralsubjectofculturaldebateand productivity ,as laterGreeksfeltcompelled to negotiatewithand appropriate earlytraditions. Further, while neverthreatening Roman spectacles, fromthetimeofAugustus athleticsbecame an increasingly popular formofpublicentertainment intheWestitself. After a substantial Introduction, each ofK6nig'snextsixchapters, all over 40 pages long,moves froman examinationofsome athletic institution (e.g., education in thegymnasium)and its textualrepresentationtowarda detailedreinterpretation ofa singlemajortextor setoftexts.K. selectstextsthatrevealathleticsas a high-status activityinciviclifeand festivalculture, and a locus ofconflicted eliteselfidentification and self-perception, as well as ofbroaderculturalcontroversiesabout education, bodies, civic virtue and the Hellenic tradition.Relishingthe varietyand complexityof representations and assessmentsofathletics, he shows thatdiverseliterary and epigraphicalrepresentations (e.g.,Galen's writingsand theinscriptions ofthefamouspankration victorMarkosAureliosAsklepiades) shared language, idioms,ambiguitiesand tensions,as theywere entangled with culturalcontroversies and the self-representation and cultural self-scrutiny oftheirauthors. In Chapter 1, "Introduction,"K. situates himselfwithin the scholarshipand establisheshisinterpretive premises.Preferring "Imperial period" to Philostratus'"Second Sophistic,"whichdenigrates both athleticsand later Greek literature,K. charges that earlier scholars(e.g., E.N. Gardiner,H.A. Harris),using latertextswithout adequate considerationof rhetoricalcontexts,internaltensionsand wider culturalpolemics,underestimated thesignificance ofathletics in eliteidentity, educationand masculineself-display. In contrast, K. applies recentstudiesofrhetoric, representation, identity and bodily display to athletics,and, like New Historicists, reads claims,valuationsor assertionsas contestations thatindicatealternativeopinions or rival claims to identityand status.Declaringthat"culture"lacks objectiverealityand is an ideal presentedand imaginedin different ways formultiplepurposes,he sees identities, culturesand textsnot as monolithic,but as contested,unstable and ambiguous. For K., identification-thesuggestingof individual, local, professionalor broad Hellenic identities-involves the "never-endingand always partlysubconscious" (p. 11) negotiationbetween sharedand highly contestedopinions,betweenself-confidence and fixity againstuncertaintyand instability.K.'s Introduction,however, grows lengthy when he summarizesthehistoryof earlyathleticsand the modern BOOK REVIEWS 109 misuse ofancientathleticcustoms,in thefirst instanceto noteearly social elitism,athletictiesto education,and a criticalliterary tradition ,and secondlyto suggestparallelsbetweentheImperialera and modern times,as representations in both ages exaggerateathletic continuities and miximitation withdistortion. Chapter2, "Lucian and Anacharsis:Gymnasion Educationin the GreekCity,"demonstrates how Lucianrevealstheabsurdity and irony involved in hallowing athleticformsof Hellenic tradition.Lucian satiricallyjuxtaposes and underminestwo conflicting conventions, one applauding the gymnasiumforpreservingauthenticHellenic traditions and providingrespitefrom everydaylife, theotherrejecting themilitary or politicalvalue ofgymnastics and mockingarchaizing attemptsto recreateClassical culture.K. explains thatgymnasium inscriptions themselvesinclude conflicting viewpoints,at timessuggestingor denying the practical usefulness of athletics,at others stressing connectionswithordistancefromagonisticfestivals. Chapter 3, "Models for Virtue: Dio's 'Melankomas' Orations and the AthleticBody," withall but one of K.'s 12 illustrations, shows...