Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources, Expanded edition

By Stephen G. Miller

Book Overview

From the informal games of Homer's time to the highly organized contests of the Roman world, Miller has compiled a trove of ancient sources--Plutarch on boxing, Aristotle on the pentathlon, Philostratos on clay dust as an anti-perspirant and on the buying and selling of victories, Vitruvius on literary competitions, Xenophon on female body building. With fully twice as many texts as the highly successful first edition, this new version of Arete offers readers an absorbing lesson in the culture of Greek athletics from the greatest of teachers--the ancients themselves.

These sources, which Miller himself has translated, provide unparalleled insights into ancient athletic practices and competitive festivals. They emphasize the fundamental role of athletics in education and shed light on such issues as the role of women in athletics and the politics and economics of the games. Ultimately they demonstrate that the concepts of virtue, skill, pride, valor, and nobility embedded in the word arete and so closely associated in the modern mind with Greek athletics are only part of the story from antiquity.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520075099
• ISBN13: 9780520075092
• Release Date: August 1991
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 239 Pages
• Weight: 1.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.9" x 0.6" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

"... beyond the dug-up area..."

This collection of excerpts from ancient sources concerning athletes, athletic contests, skills, prizes, and the athletic "mystique" is excellent. For it gives agenerous overview from different sources, from differentancient venues, and from different time periods. Thereader gains a growing sense of the awe and reverencein which skilled as well as beautiful athletes wereheld, both by spectators at the events as well asthrough the fame which they gained that was passeddown in inscriptions, statues, poetry, and thememories of those who heard of their skills andvictories even in distant places. The excerpts are not excessively long, but they arehighy interesting and instructive. The topics coveredby chapters are: the Earliest Days of Greek Athletics/Nudity and Equipment/ The Events at a Competition (Running, Wrestling, Boxing, Pankration, Pentathlon, Equestrian, Music, Poetry and Prose Composition, Acting,Painting)/ Organization of a Panhellenic Festival/ LocalFestivals/ Role of the Games in Society/ Women inAthletics/ Athletes and Heroes/ Ball Playing/ Gymnasion,Athletics, and Education/ Spread of Greek Athletics inthe Hellenistic Period/ Greek Athletics in the RomanPeriod/ Amateurism and Professionalism/ Nationalismand Internationalism/ Our Ideal and the Reality. As the author, Stephen Miller, explains in the"Introduction": "A definition of -arete- would include virtue, skill, prowess, pride, excellence, valor, and nobility, but these words, whether takenindividually or collectively, do not [completely]fulfill the meaning of -arete-." *** "...the word-arete- still carries with it a notion of ephemeralexcellence and of transient triumph that make itstranslation an exceedingly risky business." In any particular chapter, the sources citedmay include: Pausanias (author of the famous GuideBook to Greece), statue inscriptions, Athenaeus(author of the multi-volume -Deipnosophists-, Scholars at Dinner), Diodorus Siculus, poeticexcerpts from the -Greek Anthology-, Plutarch,the ancient poet Pindar, Plato's dialogues, Aristotle'streatises, as well as many other Greek and Romansources. The title which I chose for this review comes fromthe chapter titled "The Events at a Competition"and shows both the striving for excellence,and the transience of the accomplishment (ifnot the fame). The 3 excerpts concern theathlete Phayllos of Kroton, who was a pentahlete.Some of the ancient writers thought the pentathletewas the physically most perfect and beautifulof the athletic competitors. The excerpts comefrom "The Suda", "a lexicon compiled toward the endof the 10th century after Christ and based upon avariety of earlier material" [Miller]. As "TheSuda" says: "Beyond the dug-up area": beyondmeasure. A metaphor from the pentathlon [jumpingpit]. It is said to come from the pentathlete Phayllosof Kroton who, when the skammata used to be 50 feet,first exceeded them with his jumps, as the epigramon his statue says: 'Five and fifty feet flew Phayllos'."The transience