Athletics in Ancient Athens

Description

Donald Kyle concludes this fine book by stating that “it should now be clear that the interrelationship between the histories of Athens and its athletics is significant and continuous . . . Athletics were a public, integral, and poten- tially unifying or disruptive element in the civic experience of the Athenians” (p. 177). Among the many strong points of this study is its steady focus on the historical and cultural significance of athletics: this book is no mere exercise in antiquarianism, but a carefully documented analysis of the prosopography and politics of athletics in Athens. At the core of the book is a catalogue of known and possible Athenian athletes. Each athlete receives a separate biographical entry in Appendix II with the relevant ancient testimonia and bibliographical notes: classicists and ancient historians wiIl find this sober and detailed catalogue a valuable research tool. The background of Lysis, known to us from Plato’s dialogue, is nicely illumi- nated, as is that of the charismatic Autolykos, whom Xenophon, among others, described. Taking to heart the importance of the work of H. W. Pleket and David C. Young, Kyle uses his catalogue to address in chapter 4 the question of the athletes’ socio-economic background: who are the participants? Does the personnel change over the centuries of Athenian history? Kyle correctly dis- tinguishes between “elitism of birth” and the “elitism of wealth” to which it increasingly yielded in the fifth century BC. What is problematic is the difficulty in determining whether the socio-economic status of a given athlete was the result of athletic achievement or the prerequisite for it, and there are few cases where the hereditary nobility of the athletes, or its absence can be proven. It is daunting to consider how few of Athens’ archons, strategoi, choregoi and other notables are known to us at all, to say nothing of their interests (or lack thereof) in athletics. Kyle is careful to warn the reader repeatedly that the trends he points out are based on very fragmentary evidence, and he wisely refrains from computing percentages or otherwise giving a misleading positivism; the trends he does point out are sensible and sound deductions from the evidence that has come down to us.