Reflections on the number of athletic competitions in pre-Hellenistic Greece
Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport › Konferencebidrag i proceedings › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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Reflections on the number of athletic competitions in pre-Hellenistic Greece. / Nielsen, Thomas Heine.
Athletics in the Hellenistic World. red. / Christian Mann; Sofie Remijsen; Sebastian Scharff. Stuttgart : Franz Steiner Verlag, 2016. s. 31-41 2.Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport › Konferencebidrag i proceedings › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - GEN
T1 - Reflections on the number of athletic competitions in pre-Hellenistic Greece
AU - Nielsen, Thomas Heine
PY - 2016/11/28
Y1 - 2016/11/28
N2 - This paper presents some brief reflections on the cultural rôle played by athletics in Prehellenistic Greece, and it does so by considering the contexts in which athletic competitions took place and by attempting to estimate, in a very rough way, how many religious festivals included athletic competitions in their festivities in the late archaic and classical periods. This question has not previously been seriously considered by scholars, but this paper ‘guestimates’ that the number of athletic festivals ran, very probably, into several hundreds already by the end of the fourth century. It does so by briefly surveying epinician poetry, epigraphic, numismatic and literary evidence as well as archaeological evidence. Thus, the situation from which the much celebrated explosion agonistique of the later Hellenistic and Imperial periods was ignited, was a situation in which the athletic festival was already one of the truly defining features of Greek civilisation.
AB - This paper presents some brief reflections on the cultural rôle played by athletics in Prehellenistic Greece, and it does so by considering the contexts in which athletic competitions took place and by attempting to estimate, in a very rough way, how many religious festivals included athletic competitions in their festivities in the late archaic and classical periods. This question has not previously been seriously considered by scholars, but this paper ‘guestimates’ that the number of athletic festivals ran, very probably, into several hundreds already by the end of the fourth century. It does so by briefly surveying epinician poetry, epigraphic, numismatic and literary evidence as well as archaeological evidence. Thus, the situation from which the much celebrated explosion agonistique of the later Hellenistic and Imperial periods was ignited, was a situation in which the athletic festival was already one of the truly defining features of Greek civilisation.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - Greek athletics
KW - classical period
KW - religious festivals
KW - Athletes
KW - Pre-Hellenistic Greece
M3 - Article in proceedings
SN - 978-3-515-11571-1
SP - 31
EP - 41
BT - Athletics in the Hellenistic World
A2 - Mann, Christian
A2 - Remijsen, Sofie
A2 - Scharff, Sebastian
PB - Franz Steiner Verlag
CY - Stuttgart
ER -
ID: 169356826