Sport and Society in Ancient Greece

Sport and Society in Ancient Greece
Author: Mark Golden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1998-09-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521497909

Sport and Society in Ancient Greece provides a concise and readable introduction to ancient Greek sport. It covers such topics as the links between sport, religion and warfare, the origins and history of the Olympic games, and the spirit of competition among the Greeks. Its main focus, however, is on Greek sport as an arena for the creation and expression of difference among individuals and groups. Sport not only identified winners and losers. It also drew boundaries between groups (Greeks and barbarians, boys and men, males and females) and offered a field for debate on the relative worth of athletic and equestrian competition. The book includes guides to the ancient evidence and to modern scholarship on the subject.

Studies in Classical History and Society

Studies in Classical History and Society
Author: Meyer Reinhold
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195145437

Professor Reinhold, a distinguished senior classicist, has produced a fascinating and accessible collection of essays devoted to the study of ancient history. Among the articles included are "The Generation Gap," a major survey exploring myths of the uprising of one generation against another; "Augustus' Conception of Himself," a detailed summary and interpretation of Augustus' life and career; and "The Declaration of War against Cleopatra," an investigation of the charge against Cleopatra that she betrayed her pledge to Rome as a client ruler. Taken together, these essays form a unified and coherent survey of ancient history that will appeal to a broad audience.

War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds

War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds
Author: Kurt A. Raaflaub
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 502
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN:

This social history of war from the third millennium BCE to the 10th-century CE in the Mediterranean, the Near East and Europe (Egypt, Achamenid Persia, Greece, the Hellenistic World, the Roman Republic and Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the early Islamic World and early Medieval Europe) with parallel studies of Mesoamerica (the Maya and Aztecs) and East Asia (ancient China, medieval Japan). The volume offers a broadly based, comparative examination of war and military organization in their complex interactions with social, economic and political structures, as well as cultural practices.

The Augustan Succession

The Augustan Succession
Author: Peter Michael Swan
Publisher: Oxford : Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195167740

"This commentary pays close critical attention to Dio's historical sources, methods, and assumptions as it also strives to present him as a figure in his own right. During a long life (ca. 164-after 229), Dio served as a Roman senator under seven emperors from Commodus to Severus Alexander, governed three Roman provinces, and was twice consul."--BOOK JACKET.

Food and Society in Classical Antiquity

Food and Society in Classical Antiquity
Author: Peter Garnsey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 194
Release: 1999-04-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521645881

This is the first study of food in classical antiquity that treats it as both a biological and a cultural phenomenon. The variables of food quantity, quality and availability, and the impact of disease, are evaluated and a judgement reached which inclines to pessimism. Food is also a symbol, evoking other basic human needs and desires, especially sex, and performing social and cultural roles which can be either integrative or divisive. The book explores food taboos in Greek, Roman, and Jewish society, and food-allocation within the family, as well as more familiar cultural and economic polarities which are highlighted by food and eating. The author draws on a wide range of evidence new and old, from written sources to human skeletal remains, and uses both comparative historical evidence from early modern and contemporary developing societies and the anthropological literature, to create a case-study of food in antiquity.

Children and Childhood in Classical Athens

Children and Childhood in Classical Athens
Author: Mark Golden
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2015-06-30
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1421416859

A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Mark Golden’s groundbreaking study of childhood in ancient Greece. First published in 1990, Children and Childhood in Classical Athens was the first book in English to explore the lives of children in ancient Athens. Drawing on literary, artistic, and archaeological sources as well as on comparative studies of family history, Mark Golden offers a vivid portrait of the public and private lives of children from about 500 to 300 B.C. Golden discusses how the Athenians viewed children and childhood, describes everyday activities of children at home and in the community, and explores the differences in the social lives of boys and girls. He details the complex bonds among children, parents, siblings, and household slaves, and he shows how a growing child’s changing roles often led to conflict between the demands of family and the demands of community. In this thoroughly revised edition, Golden places particular emphasis on the problem of identifying change over time and the relationship of children to adults. He also explores three dominant topics in the recent historiography of childhood: the agency of children, the archaeology of childhood, and representations of children in art. The book includes a completely new final chapter, text and notes rewritten throughout to incorporate evidence and scholarship that has appeared over the past twenty-five years, and an index of ancient sources.

The Myth of Paganism

The Myth of Paganism
Author: Robert Shorrock
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2013-10-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1472519663

Traditional and still prevalent accounts of late antique literature draw a clear distinction between 'pagan' and 'Christian' forms of poetry: whereas Christian poetry is taken seriously in terms its contribution to culture and society at large, so-called pagan or secular poetry is largely ignored, as though it has no meaningful part to play within the late antique world. The Myth of Paganism sets out to deconstruct this view of two contrasting poetic traditions and proposes in its place a new integrated model for the understanding of late antique poetry. As the book argues, the poet of Christ and the poet of the Muses were drawn together into an active, often provocative, dialogue about the relationship between Christianity and the Classical tradition and, ultimately, about the meaning of late antiquity itself. An analysis of the poetry of Nonnus of Panopolis, author of both a 'pagan' epic about Dionysus and a Christian translation of St John's Gospel, helps to illustrate this complex dialectic between pagan and Christian voices.

The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society

The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society
Author: Shaun Tougher
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2009-06-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135235716

The existence of eunuchs was one of the defining features of the Byzantine Empire. Covering the whole span of the history of the empire, from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries AD, Shaun Tougher presents a comprehensive survey of the history and roles of eunuchs, making use of extensive comparative material, such as from China, Persia and the Ottoman Empire, as well as about castrato singers of the eighteenth century of Enlightenment Europe, and self-castrating religious devotees such as the Galli of ancient Rome, early Christians, the Skoptsy of Russia and the Hijras of India. The various roles played by eunuchs are examined. They are not just found as servile attendants; some were powerful political players – such as Chrysaphius who plotted to assassinate Attila the Hun – and others were prominent figures in Orthodoxy as bishops and monks. Furthermore, there is offered an analysis of how society thought about eunuchs, especially their gender identity - were they perceived as men, women, or a third sex? The broad survey of the political and social position of eunuchs in the Byzantine Empire is placed in the context of the history of the eunuch in general. An appendix listing key eunuchs of the Byzantine Empire describing their careers is included, and the text is fully illustrated.

Emperors and Usurpers

Emperors and Usurpers
Author: Andrew G. Scott
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190879599

This historical commentary examines books 79(78)-80(80) of Cassius Dio's Roman History, which cover the period from the death of Caracalla in A. D. 217. to the reign of Severus Alexander and Cassius Dio's retirement from political life in 229. Cassius Dio, a Roman Senator, provides a valuable eyewitness account of this turbulent period, which was marked by the assassination of Caracalla, the rise of Macrinus, Rome's first equestrian emperor, and his subsequent overthrow, the tempestuous, and by all accounts peculiar, reign of Elagabalus, and the continuation of the Severan dynasty under the young Severus Alexander. In addition to elucidating important passages from these books, this study assesses Cassius Dio's political life and its relationship to his literary career; his call to history and time of composition; his historical method; and his attitude toward and subsequent presentation of the later Severan dynasty. In its investigation of books 79(78)-80(80), the work assesses an important stretch of Dio's actual text, which for other parts has been preserved largely in epitome and excerpts. Finally, the work aims to fill a gap in scholarship, as no commentary on these books of Cassius Dio's history has been produced since the nineteenth century, and its publication coincides with a renewed interest in the history and historiography of the Severan period.

The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization

The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization
Author: Simon Hornblower
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 907
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198706774

This Oxford Companion to the ancient classical world is aimed at the general reader interested in learning more about the very bedrock of Western culture, covering such topics as history, morals, mythology, medicine and social life.