This book will look at the role of sport as practiced in several important civilizations in the ancient world. It will explore how athletics figured into various cultural arenas that extended beyond physical prowess to include military associations, ritual, status, politics, and other concerns. The book will have four distinct parts: the Prehistoric Age, historic Greece, ancient Italy, and the Byzantine Empire. Beginning with the earliest civilizations, the first chapter examines the military and recreational aspects of sports in prehistoric Egypt, with brief references to other river-valley cultures in Sumeria, Mesopotamia and Persia. The second looks at the rituals of Cretan bull-leaping and boxing in the Bronze Age, while the third examines the high status of sports in Mycenaean Greece, and the funeral games in the Trojan War as described by the epic poet, Homer.

Nigel B. Crowther is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Western Ontario.