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Games and Festivals in Classical Antiquity: Proceedings of the Conference held in Edinburgh 10–12 July 2000
Sinclair Bell and Glenys Davies
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The 14 papers in this volume are taken from a conference held in Edinburgh in 2004. When the organisers called for papers for a conference on Games and Festivals they had no idea the response would be so varied—ranging from Minoan bull leaping to Samoan kilikiti—or that the papers would turn out to be so thematically interrelated. The response has shown that it is not so much the mechanics of the games or the actions carried out at ancient festivals that fascinate modern scholars as their social and political significance and the way the theme could be manipulated by writers and artists. Games and festivals were at the heart of Classical societies, playing a much more important role than in modern western societies (even taking football into account). Festivals structured the year and were inextricably bound up with the structures of society. Games and festivals are also closely linked, as most competitive games took place at a festival, or at least in a religious context, even, it seems, cock fighting and dicing, and many festivals contained elements of competition. Competitiveness pervades Greek and Roman life—and this is reflected in literature and art. In this, an Olympic year, a new selection of papers on Classical games and festivals is especially welcome.
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Front Cover
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Title Page
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Copyright
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Table of Contents
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Contributors
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List of Illustrations
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Introduction
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Chapter 1 Grasping the Bull by the Horns: Minoan Bull Sports
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Chapter 2 Festival? What Festival? Reading Dance Imagery as Evidence
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Chapter 3 Professional Foul: Persona in Pindar
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Chapter 4 Orestes the Contender: Chariot Racing and Politics in Fifth-Century Athens and Sophocles’ Electra
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Chapter 5 From Agônistês to Agônios: Hermes, Chaos and Conflict in Competitive Games and Festivals
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Chapter 6 Dionysiac Festivals in Aristophanes’ Acharnians
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Chapter 7 The Perils of Pittalakos: Settings of Cock Fighting and Dicing in Classical Athens
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Chapter 8 Civic Self-Representation in the Hellenistic World: The Festival of Artemis Leukophryene in Magnesia-on-the-Maeander
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Chapter 9 Dionysius of Halicarnassus: Greek Origins and Roman Games (AR 7.70-73)
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Chapter 10 Epic Games and Real Games in Virgil’s Aeneid 5 and Statius’ Thebaid 6
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Chapter 11 Sport or Showbiz? The Naumachiae in the Flavian Amphitheatre
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Chapter 12 Dionysiac Scenes on Sagalassian Oinophoroi from Seleuceia Sidēra in Pisidia (Southwestern Turkey)
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Chapter 13 Christianising the Celebrations of Death in Late Antiquity: Funerals and Society
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Chapter 14 The Sala dei Cavalli in Palazzo Te: Portraits of Champions
Citable Link
Published: 2004
Publisher: BAR Publishing
- 9781407326320 (ebook)
- 9781841715803 (paperback)
BAR Number: S1220
- Greece, Aegean, Crete and Black Sea
- Epigraphy / Ancient and Medieval Texts / Papyri
- Art / Sculpture / Gems / Seals
- Music and Dance
- Ethnoarchaeology / Anthropology
- Bronze Age and Iron Age
- Festschrifte / Presentation Volumes
- Late Antiquity and Byzantium
- Roman
- Mediterranean
- Ritual / Religion / Temples
- Classical and Hellenistic