CLASSGEN 34: ANCIENT ATHLETICS
Summer 2014
T/TH 9-10:30 am
Instructor: Ava Shirazi
R EQUIRED T EXTS
AAW = Athletics in the Ancient World, Z. Newby (Bristol, 2006)
TRG = The Roman Games: Historical Sources in Translation, A. Futrell (Blackwell 2006)
All other readings will be posted to Coursework AND will on the course website:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/classics/cgi-bin/wordpress/.
Use your Sunet ID and password to log into the website.
Please note that for reasons of file size we cannot post all of the video clips on Coursework,
but most of them will be on the website.
C OURSE D ESCRIPTION
AND
G OALS
Athletic competitions, whether individual or group, are fundamental in our experience of
modern life. So much so that statements like that of the late sportscaster Howard Cosell
have become a cliché: “I learned early on that sports is a part of life, that it is human life in
microcosm, and that the virtues and flaws of the society exist in sports even as they exist
everywhere else.” Yet competitive sports do not have this same intrinsic value in all cultures
nor would many cultures feel comfortable with the notion that sports are ‘human life in
microcosm’. Where do these attitudes come from? These and many other of our modern
western ideas about sports are inherited from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the
central goal of this course is to study the growth and development of ancient sports in these
societies in order to better understand our own attitudes about the value of the athlete and
competitive sport in our society including development of the Olympic Games, debates about
amateur vs. professional, athletic training and health regimen, issues of class in sports, and
the role of money in the cost of events, payments for athletes, betting and bribery. You will be
encouraged throughout the course to identify patterns and make connections between what
you are learning about ancient sports and sports in the contemporary context.
G RADE F ORMULA
30%
20%
20%
30%
Section Attendance + participation
Short Paper 1
Short Paper 2
Final Assignment
1
P ROVISIONAL S CHEDULE
OF
L ECTURE T OPICS
AND
R EADINGS
UNIT ONE
Background for ancient athletics
Week 1
Introduction. Why talk about athletics? And especially why talk
about ancient athletics?
• AAW 13-20
Debates about the origins of Greek athletic competition—War?
Funeral games? Spectacle? Who participated? What kind of
events?
• AAW 20-24
• Selections from Homer: Iliad Book 23 and Odyssey, Book 8
• Online reader: Why sport?
Week 2
The rise of the gymnasium. The values of an honor vs. shame
culture. The principle of zero sum competition—you can’t be a
winner without a loser
• AAW 74-85
• Lucian, Anacharsis
• Online reader: The Gymnasium
Training the athlete; the athletic body, sports injuries. What’s the
difference between exercise and competition.
• Background for Lucian and Galen, Naked Olympics
• D. W. Masterson, “The Ancient Origins of Sports Medicine”
• Galen, On Hygiene
2
Greek wrestlers
UNIT TWO
The Ancient Olympic Games and other games
Week 3
Olympia: the site of the Olympic games.
• AAW 27-35, 42-48
• Online Reader: Pausanias’ Olympia
Structure of the festival and types of events.
• Poliakoff on Combat Sports, 7-21
• Take the following tours: The Powerhouse Museum’s Greek
Stadium:http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/greek/stadium.php
Perseus project: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Olympics/site.html
Week 4
‘Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing’—celebrating the
victors.
•Selections from Pindar’s victory poems
• Selections from video: The Real Olympics
Games and the festival culture
Link 1: Odysseus:
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/2/eh220.jsp?era=2&group=11
Link 2: Perseus Project
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Parthenon+Frie
ze&object=Sculpture&redirect=true
Week 5
Women in competitive games
3
• B. Spears, “A Perspective of the History of Women’s Sport in
Ancient Greece”
• M. Golden, “On the Track of Women’s Sport”
• Online Reader: Women in Ancient Athletics
Athletic stars, social status, and mobility.
• Online Reader: Famous Athletes
• Online Reader: Social Attitudes towards Athletes
Ancient Olympic stadium reconstructed
UNIT THREE
Corporate Sports—Gladiators, dedicated sports venues
Week 6
The development of spectacular games at Rome. Conspicuous
consumption and the exhibition of the power and extent of the
Roman Empire. The political value of ‘bread and circuses’.
Gladiatorial combat: types, outcomes, audiences.
• TRG pp. 84-159.
• Visit Kathleen Coleman’s BBC site on gladiators:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/gladiators_01.shtml
Week 7
Chariot racing
• TRG pp. 189-217
Paying for the games.
4
• TRG pp. 14-21, 48-51
Week 8
The dedicated sports arena
• TRG pp. 52-77;
• Video: The Emperor’s Gift
What archaeology can tell us about gladiators.
• Video: Gladiators back from the Dead
Roman mosaic of gladiators
UNIT FOUR:
Ancient Sports and Modern Contexts
Week 9
The revival of the Olympic Games
• Selections from Riefenstahl’s Olympia
• Swaddling, 99-114
The Olympics today
• Jason König, Ancient and Modern Olympics, selections TBA
http://ancientandmodernolympics.wordpress.com/
The cult of the gladiator
• Tweedland’s The Historical Accuracy of the Gladiator and the
5
Image of Rome:
http://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2013/07/his
torical-accuracy-of-gladiator-and.html
• Selections from video: Gladiator
Week 10
Review; Epilogue
From Chariots of Fire
6