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Greek Female Sport
Abstract
This chapter surveys the significance of sport for Greek girls and women, from local rituals to physical education and competition in major festivals, from early Greece to the Roman Empire. Greek society of the Archaic and Classical periods offered few opportunities for females to compete physically. Spartan female physical education and indirect female equestrian victories at Olympia were anomalous. After the Classical period, however, attitudes to female sport changed significantly. Encouraged by the Ptolemies of Alexandria, Greek royal females of the Hellenistic period became prominent, albeit still indirect, equestrian victors. During the Roman period, traditional Greek female sporting rituals continued, and opportunities for female sporting competitors increased within the burgeoning system of Greco-Roman spectacles and games. Ironically, the “golden age” of Greek female sport was not Classical Greece but rather the Early Roman Empire. The Roman era brought more sporting access for daughters of nobles and officials.
This study discusses the exclusion of women, slaves, and physically disabled individuals from the ancient Olympics, focusing on Goffman's theory of stigma. It also delves into how kalokagathia influenced beauty, athleticism, and virtue, reinforced hierarchies and stigmatized those who did not fit the idealized image. Overall, the study provides a comprehensive exploration of how ancient Greek ideals and societal structures stigmatized certain groups based on gender, social status, and physical ability. Femininity, slavery, and physical disability were the conspicuous stigmatized identities of ancient Greek societies. In ancient Greece, the concept of kalokagathia, intertwining physical beauty with moral and intellectual excellence, formed the basis of societal standards. This ideal, however, was exclusive, applying only to free men of good heritage, while women, slaves, and the physically disabled faced stigmatization based on physiognomic reasoning and body temperature distinctions. The stigma was based on physical deviations from the able-bodied male standard. The physiognomic concept hidden behind the ideal of kalokagathia reproduced the stigma. Body temperature played a significant role in shaping discriminatory practices, associating warmth with virtues and deeming the male body superior. Women were considered inferior due to their colder bodies, and slaves were viewed as cold and incapable, reinforcing social hierarchies. Women and slaves were excluded from athletic ideals because of their non-normative body temperatures, while the physically disabled were excluded due to their ugly/deformed bodies. The ancient Olympics showcased able-bodied men displaying their athletic arete. Women's visibility in the ancient Greek Olympics was only representative. Restricted from participating in public athletic events, women were also subject to strict prohibitions on competition in the ancient Olympic Games. Only in the chariot races were exceptions made for unmarried women. While Kyniska emerged as the first female Olympic champion in 396 BCE, opportunities for representative participation in the Olympic Games were limited to women of wealth and status. Sport in ancient Greece served as a means of distinguishing between free citizens and slaves. Slaves, the anonymous figures of the ancient Olympics, could only participate in horse and chariot races on behalf of their owners. Although some local festivals allowed slave participation in athletic activities, major events like the Olympic Games prohibited direct competition for slaves, emphasizing their exclusion. This stigma-based athletic exclusion made it impossible for slaves to represent themselves as competitors in the ancient Olympics. The physically disabled, on the other hand, were completely deprived of the opportunity to compete in the ancient Olympics; they could compete neither representatively nor anonymously. Discriminatory practices against the physically disabled, embedded in social structures reinforced by philosophical ideals, myths, religious stereotypes and sacrificial rituals, resulted in them remaining completely absent from the ancient Olympics.
Antik Yunan eğitim anlayışı beden eğitimini ve ahlaki gelişimi kapsayan kalokagathia (ἡ καλοκἀγαθία) kavramı etrafında şekillenir. Arkaik Dönemden itibaren (MÖ. 9.-7.yy) iyi bir asker yetiştirilmesi amaçlandığından eğitim sistemi jimnastik (gymnastike), müzik (mousike), kahramanlık destanlarının öğrenilmesi üzerine kurulur. MÖ. 6. yüzyılda Miletos’ta felsefi düşüncenin ortaya çıkmasıyla okuma-yazma, entelektüel gelişim öncelik kazanır ve felsefe ön plana çıkar. MÖ. 5.-4. yüzyılda Atina’nın yönetim tarzının değişmesiyle vatandaşlık bilinci ve demokratik değerlerin önem kazanması sofistik eğitimi popüler hâle getirir. Konuşma ve ikna sanatı (rhetorik), hümanizm, bireysellik, rölativizm ve ücretli eğitim (öğretmenlik mesleği) paideia içindeki yerini alır. Hellenistik Dönem’de ise paideia etik değerler, yaşam tarzı ve entelektüel gelişimi kapsayan bir karaktere bürünür. Roma İmparatorluk Dönemi’nde de eğitim; hukuk, yönetim, rhetorik ve ahlak gibi konuları kapsar ve toplumsal düzeni sürdürmek, geniş sınırlara ulaşan imparatorluğu yönetmek için bir araç olarak kullanılır. Kentlerin eğitim kurumu olarak Klasik Dönem’den itibaren ama özellikle Hellenistik Dönem’de gymnasionlar; Roma İmparatorluk Döneminde ise imparatorlar tarafından kurulan kürsüler ve düşünürlerin açtığı okullar ön plana çıkar. Bu merkezlerde erkekler eğitim görürken kadınlar kamusal alandan dışlandıkları gibi eğitim hayatından da mahrum bırakılırlar. Bu makalede, Arkaik Dönem’den (MÖ. 8-6 yüzyıl) Roma İmparatorluk Dönemi’ne (MÖ. 27-MS. 395) kadar Antik Yunan toplumunun eğitim anlayışının nasıl evirildiği, hangi felsefi düşünce ve kavramlar üzerinde inşa edildiği, eğitim kurumlarının neler olduğu ve kadınların eğitim sistemindeki konumları incelenerek eğitim anlayışının sınırları çizilir. Bu çalışmanın Antik Yunan eğitim anlayışının hangi kavramlar ve kurumlar üzerine inşa edildiğinin ve tarihsel olarak hangi süreçlerden geçildiğinin anlaşılmasına ve günümüz eğitim sistemleriyle karşılaştırma yapılabilmesine katkı sunması amaçlanır.
La tan repetida afirmación de que en los Juegos Olímpicos antiguos las mujeres no participaban requiere ciertos matices. En estas páginas se estudian las razones por las que el deporte femenino en la antigua Grecia y sus competiciones se mantuvieron siempre muy estrechamente ligadas al contexto cultual y religioso en el que se celebraban. Sin embargo, en época imperial romana, algunos testimonios han hecho que diversos estudiosos se hayan planteado la posibilidad de que hubiera podido desprenderse de alguna manera de su estrechísima vinculación con los rituales iniciáticos y prematrimoniales, y haber tenido cabida incluso en las grandes competiciones deportivas, quizá ya más como espectáculo que como acto de culto.
The aim of this book is to provide a systematic examination of a crucial aspect of classical Sparta, her system of property, and to analyse the role of private wealth within her society. The volume falls into four parts. In Part I, Spartan perceptions, I shall outline certain misleading but highly influential images of Sparta's property system and attitudes to wealth which have prevailed since ancient times. Chapter I will sketch the prevalence of perceptions of Sparta as an economically egalitarian society in the works of key modern thinkers from the 16th to the 18th centuries - perceptions which have formed an influential backdrop to historical scholarship on Sparta during the last 200 years. Chapter 2 examines the creation and development of these images in antiquity under the influence of what is commonly known as the `Spartan mirage': that is, `the partly distorted, partly invented, image created by and for non-Spartans (with not a little help from their Spartan friends) of what Sparta ideally represented' (Cartledge 1987, 118).
Part II, The anatomy of the Spartiate property system, attempts to uncover the `reality' obscured by these `Spartan perceptions', focusing on the balance between private and public elements in Spartan property-holding. Chapter 3 analyses the nature of landownership and inheritance, emphasising - contrary to the pervasive images of egalitarian state control - the predominantly private character of land tenure. Chapter 4 examines the Spartiates' control over the servile helot population, focusing upon their relationship as landowners and cultivators, and the character and geographical extent of Spartiate agricultural exploitation of Lakonia and Messenia. Chapter 5 discusses private ownership and use of non-landed property, especially the controversial questions of Sparta's iron currency, the use of foreign coinage and the role of monetary wealth. Finally, Chapter 6 examines certain public limitations on private property ownership, placing them in a broader historical perspective.
Part III, Rich citizens and the use of private wealth, analyses the extent to which rich citizens were able to make use of their private resources and the impact of those uses upon Spartiate society. Chapter 7 considers certain restrictions upon the deployment of private wealth in Spartan life; Chapter 8 similar restrictions on burials and funerary practice. Chapter 9 investigates the sphere of religious dedications, assessing the degree to which it was marked by restrictions on the use of wealth or by its deployment for prestige displays. Chapters 10 and 11 discuss two particular spheres in which rich citizens were able to employ their surplus wealth with potentially significant socio-political consequences: through horse-rearing and engagement in equestrian contests, and through the establishment of personal and political relations of patronage and clientism at home and abroad. My overall thesis is that, despite manifold restrictions, their deployment of private wealth created a significant gulf between wealthy Spartiates and their poorer fellow citizens.
Part IV, Property and the Spartan crisis, pursues this point in examining the contribution of inequalities in wealth to the crisis of Spartiate society. Chapter 12 attempts the difficult task of quantifying the economic viability of `ordinary' citizen households, suggesting that their productive capacity would normally have been sufficient to meet their material demands, as long as the distribution of land remained only moderately unequal. Finally, Chapter 13 analyses the growth of excessive property concentration and the impoverishment of citizen households during the fifth and early fourth centuries. It also examines the impact of these developments on the crisis of Spartiate society, focusing especially on the growth of a plutocratic society, in which the dominance of wealthy citizens undermined the classical Spartan social order.
Ancient sport made a huge if indirect contribution to the literature of ancient Greece, since some sixty poems by Pindar and Bacchylides ('epinikian odes'), written to commemorate victories, survive from the Classical period. This book is a collection of essays about that literature, and about the social and physical context for which it was written. The editors assembled an internationally distinguished team of speakers for the original 2002 seminar series held in London, and these papers form the backbone of the book. But to ensure coherence and comprehensive coverage, they have commissioned three further papers, and have themselves written a long thematic Introduction. The result is a stellar team of authors, and a book which looks at an important literary phenomenon in light of the latest archaeological and sociological insights, as well as evaluating the poetry both as poetry and as a performance genre with distinctive characteristics.
This work presents current approaches and new avenues of enquiry into ancient sport and spectacle. It discusses historical perspectives, contest forms, contest-related texts, civic and social aspects, and use and meaning of the individual body. Greek and Roman topics are interwoven under each heading to simulate contest-like tensions and complementarities, juxtaposing, for example, violence in Greek athletics and in Roman gladiatorial events, Greek and Roman chariot events, architectural frameworks for contests and games in the two cultures, and contrasting views of religion, bodily regimens, and judicial classification related to both cultures. It examines the social contexts of games, namely the evolution of sport and spectacle diachronically and geographically across cultural and political boundaries, and how games are adapted to multiple contexts and multiple purposes, reinforcing, for example, social hierarchies, performing shared values, and playing out deep cultural tensions. The work also pays some attention to other directing forces in the ancient Mediterranean (e.g. Bronze Age Egypt and the Near East; Etruria; and early Christianity). The volume addresses important themes common to antiquity and modern society, such as issues of class, gender, health, and the popular culture of the modern Olympics, and gladiators in cinema. It presents contests and spectacles as venues of connection and as opportunities for the negotiation of status and the exchange of value, broadly for example how early panhellenic sanctuaries responded to economic stakeholders, and how groups and individuals in the later Roman empire forged social and political links through the circus events.
Spartan Girl AthletesSpartan Female HorsemanshipFemale Spartan SymposiastsHomoerotic RelationshipsSpartan School GirlsConclusions
Recommended Further ReadingNotes
It has often been thought that participation in fertility rituals was women's most important religious activity in classical Greece. Matthew Dillon's wide-ranging study makes it clear that women engaged in numerous other rites and cults, and that their role in Greek religion was actually more important than that of men. Women invoked the gods' help in becoming pregnant, venerated the god of wine, worshipped new and exotic deities, used magic for both erotic and pain-relieving purposes, and far more besides. Clear and comprehensive, this volume challenges many stereotypes of Greek women and offers unexpected insights into their experience of religion. With more than fifty illustrations, and translated extracts from contemporary texts, this is an essential resource for the study of women and religion in classical Greece.
A noted authority on ancient sport discusses various ways in which the ancient Greeks, as well as people today, used sports to achieve social status. Copyright
This book explores the relationship between sport and democratization. Drawing on sociological and historical methodologies, it provides a framework for understanding how sport affects the level of egalitarianism in the society in which it is played. The author distinguishes between horizontal sport, which embodies and fosters egalitarian relations, and vertical sport, which embodies and fosters hierarchical relations. He also differentiates between societies in which sport is played and watched on a mass scale and those in which it is an ancillary activity. Using ancient Greece and nineteenth-century Britain as case studies, he analyzes how these variables interact and finds that horizontal mass sport has the capacity to both promote and inhibit democratization at a societal level. He concludes that horizontal mass sport tends to reinforce and extend democratization.
Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title Awarded a 2013 PROSE Honorable Mention as a Single Volume Reference/Humanities & Social Sciences A Companion to Women in the Ancient World presents an interdisciplinary, methodologically-based collection of newly-commissioned essays from prominent scholars on the study of women in the ancient world. The first interdisciplinary, methodologically-based collection of readings to address the study of women in the ancient world Explores a broad range of topics relating to women in antiquity, including: Mother-Goddess Theory; Women in Homer, Pre-Roman Italy, the Near East; Women and the Family, the State, and Religion; Dress and Adornment; Female Patronage; Hellenistic Queens; Imperial Women; Women in Late Antiquity; Early Women Saints; and many more Thematically arranged to emphasize the importance of historical themes of continuity, development, and innovation Reconsiders much of the well-known evidence and preconceived notions relating to women in antiquity Includes contributions from many of the most prominent scholars associated with the study of women in antiquity.
The quadrennial festival of the Heraia at Olympia provided one of the few attested venues for girls to participate in athletic competitions in Greece during the Classical period. One of the most unusual features recorded for the Heraia was the athletic costume worn by the participants, a short chiton affixed to the left shoulder leaving the right shoulder and breast bared. Since the literary sources treating other contemporary athletic festivals do not mention this garment, the dress was perhaps unique to the Heraia ritual. Previous examinations of this athletic costume have attributed its derivation to the dress worn by the Amazons, Artemis, and Atalanta. A closer investigation of the Heraia outfit, however, reveals that it was inspired by the ἐξωμίς, a garment worn by men engaged in strenuous activity. The appropriateness of the ἐξωμίς as an iconographic source for the Heraia running dress becomes clear if the festival of Hera is correctly interpreted as a prenuptial female initiation rite. Cross-cultural studies of social puberty rituals in premodern societies identify a common feature of such rites: the initiate adopts characteristics of the opposite sex and, in many instances, wears clothing regarded as typical of the other gender. The assumption of traits associated with the opposite sex allows the initiate to return to the necessary state of primordial totality, thus facilitating the passage from childhood to adulthood.
This article explores the education of girls through the performance of choral ritual by focusing on the myths through which instruction was given. It finds in the Louvre Partheneion of Alcman, Sappho's ceremonial poetry, and the fragments of Telesilla and Corinna a recurrent theme of male violence in response to female sexuality related to the foundation of some rite or institution, and it describes the lessons such myths contained./Étude de l'éducation des filles à travers la célébration de rites choraux, en s'attachant aux mythes par lesquels une part de l'instruction était dispensée. Le Partheneion d'Alcmène au Louvre, la poésie cérémonielle de Sappho et les fragments de Telesilla et de Corinne sont porteurs d'un thème commun, celui de la violence masculine face à la sexualité féminine. Ce thème est lié à la fondation de certains rites et de certaines institutions. De plus, l'article décrit les leçons véhiculées par ces mythes.
This article seeks to situate the athletic activities of Spartiates and their unmarried daughters during the Classical period in their broader societal context by using theoretical perspectives taken from sociology in general and the sociology of sport in particular to explore how those activities contributed to the maintenance of social order in Sparta. Social order is here taken to denote a system of interlocking societal institutions, practices, and norms that is relatively stable over time. Athletics was a powerful mechanism that helped to generate consensus and to socialize and coerce individuals. It thus induced compliance with behavioral norms on the part of both females and males and thereby contributed meaningfully to the maintenance of social order in Sparta. Athletics inculcated conformity to norms that called for females to be compliant, beautiful objects of male desire. Athletics had an equally profound effect on Spartan males because it inculcated compliance with norms that valorized subordination of the individual to the group, playing the part of the soldier, and meritocratic status competition. Athletics may well have also to some degree empowered both Spartan females and males, but its liberatory dimensions can easily be unduly amplified. There is an ever-present dialectic in athletics, between its ability to reinforce norms that underpin the prevailing social order and its ability to foster individual autonomy. In the case of Sparta, the balance in that dialectic always inclined very much toward the former.
In the third century BC, Ptolemaic Egypt was very successful on the Greek sports circuit. This essay analyses the prominent position of Egyptian competitors – that is, residents of Ptolemaic Egypt competing for a traditional Greek city or for Alexandria – both in equestrian and athletic events. Their achievements were no coincidence: sport was actively promoted by the Ptolemies, through the construction of sports infrastructure, financial help for promising athletes and the introduction of Greek games in Egypt. The publicity of their success was directed towards the Greek world. The aim of this Ptolemaic focus on sports was to create an ‘image of power’ and to stress the Greek identity of the Ptolemies.
Book description: Ancient sport made a huge if indirect contribution to the literature of ancient Greece, since some sixty poems by Pindar and Bacchylides ("epinikian odes"), written to commemorate victories, survive from the Classical period. This book is a collection of essays about that literature, and about the social and physical context for which it was written. The editors assembled an internationally distinguished team of speakers for the original 2002 seminar series held in London, and these papers form the backbone of the book. But to ensure coherence and comprehensive coverage, they have commissioned three further papers, and have themselves written a long thematic Introduction. The result is a stellar team of authors, and a book which looks at an important literary phenomenon in light of the latest archaeological and sociological insights, as well as evaluating the poetry both as poetry and as a performance genre with distinctive characteristics.
Book description:
Ancient sport made a huge if indirect contribution to the literature of ancient Greece, since some sixty poems by Pindar and Bacchylides ('epinikian odes'), written to commemorate victories, survive from the Classical period. This book is a collection of essays about that literature, and about the social and physical context for which it was written. The editors assembled an internationally distinguished team of speakers for the original 2002 seminar series held in London, and these papers form the backbone of the book. But to ensure coherence and comprehensive coverage, they have commissioned three further papers, and have themselves written a long thematic Introduction. The result is a stellar team of authors, and a book which looks at an important literary phenomenon in light of the latest archaeological and sociological insights, as well as evaluating the poetry both as poetry and as a performance genre with distinctive characteristics.
Women, Dogs, and Flies
- Cole S. G.
Gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz ‘sportlicher’ Frauen in der Antike
- Frass M.
Aspects ludiques, rituels et sportifs de la course feminine dans la Grèce antique
- Bernardini P. A.
Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece: Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Functions
- C. Calame
Gender and the Games at Olympia
- S. des Bouvrie
- B. Berggreen
- N. Marinatos
The Oldest Dead White European Males
- Knox B.
The Spartan Dyarchy: A Comparative Perspective
- E Millender
Femmes et jeux dans le monde Grec hellénistique et impérial
- Bielman A.
The Gymnasium of Virtue
- N. Kennell
Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire
- J. König
Ancient Greek Athletics
- S. Miller
Olympia‐Zentrum des Frauensports in der Antike? Die Mädchen‐Wettläufe beim Hera‐Fest in Olympia
- Langenfeld H.
Athletics and the Bikini Girls from Piazza Armerina
- Lee H.