The introductory chapter is framed by the story of Ergoteles, a major Panhellenic victor and the only athlete whose epinikian ode and epigram have survived to the present day. The differences and similarities in the characterization of Ergoteles in each medium prompt the book’s main question: how does place, performance mode, and genre affect the representation of athletic identity? The bulk of the introduction outlines the angelia, the proclamation of victory by a herald at an athletic event. By stressing our – and ancient audiences – inability to access the actual speech-act, the chapter reinterprets the angelia as it persists in epinikian and epigram as an allusive representation, the modification and manipulation of which lies at the core of the verse celebration of athletic victory.

While the figure of herald and the actual angelia at the athletic site sit at the beginning of athletic praise, these real figures and actual proclamations are not the only heralds and messages that find their way into epinikian song and inscribed epigram. Rather, explicit and implicit references to the figure of the herald and the angelia are frequent in both genres. This chapter examines implicit and explicit heralds and messages across epinikian song and inscribed epigram. It focuses on the figure of the herald and the message and their ability to authenticate what are, in fact, secondary and elaborated speech-acts. By attaching themselves to the voice of the herald at the Games, epinikian songs and epigrams demand that audiences take their praise seriously, as if it were the voice of herald itself in the sacred landscape of a Panhellenic sanctuary.

This chapter focuses on elaborations from the categories of the angelia - the herald’s proclamation of victory - that are so productive for epinikian verse. The angelia’s utility for epinikian song goes beyond simply reinforcing authority or justifying praise. While the epinikian singer was undoubtedly provided the “facts of identity," they do not dryly report these facts; moreover, in some cases they do not report the specific “facts” of the angelia at all. “Identity,” in epinikian song’s modification of the angelia, is a subjective category, and the “facts” that relate to the victor – name, father’s name, polis, festival, and event – are not set in stone but rather creatively reworked, sometimes reimagined, and sometimes made extremely complex, in the context of song and its performance. By replacing fathers and integrating family, spinning myths derived from the victor’s polis or the festival site, and using the details of athletic practice itself as a mode of praising, the epinikian singer uses the angelia to structure his song and praise his patron (or patrons).

This chapter examines a series of athletic dedications to trace both the evolution of the epigrammatic representation of the angelia - the herald’s proclamation of victory at an athletic festival - and to define the particular characteristics of the epigram as an athletic dedication. While a continuity exists between modes of athletic verse, epigrams – as inscriptions – and epinikian songs – as choral performances – function differently and interact with different audiences. Epigrams do not, for example, use large-scale mythic narratives to bestow glory on their patrons, but they do circumscribe the movements and voices of their audiences and use the religiously and culturally important sites of their dedication to add to their meaning.

Chapter 5 turns the spotlight on the rather overlooked treatise Exhortation to the Study of Medicine. It argues that in this work Galen constructs or conjures up images of young readers, intending it to act as an educational manual in moral intensification for prospective medical students. It hence demonstrates how Galen’s concern for his reader’s acculturation might explain the appropriation of advice and the selection of relevant material from a long-established protreptic tradition. In discussing Galen’s moralising methods and the pedagogical elements of the essay, this Chapter also draws links between Galenic and Plutarchan moralism, dealt with in detail for the first time, and thereby arguing that Galen’s moral writings need to be construed in the light of Imperial-period practical ethics. That proposition receives further support from the special features of Galen’s protreptic discourse discussed in this Chapter, especially practicability and effectiveness resulting from the author’s philosophical leanings (e.g. his Platonic-Aristotelian background) and medical expertise (the mechanics of the body and his emulation of Hippocrates in the second part of the essay).

This chapter provides a thoughtful insight into the sometimes cruel world of elite sports, as seen through the eyes of Oluyinka Idowu, a former British Olympic athlete and Commonwealth Games silver medallist. As a medical doctor, parent, and educator, Dr Idowu reflects on her own experiences of how the perceptions and behaviours of others can have a profound effect on our body image and self-esteem, leading to long-lasting and significant psychological and mental health problems. Her account depicts a reality that many of us experience in everyday life, although we often do not appreciate its impact. Dr Idowu uses the world of athletics to describe how certain words and expressions can shape our thinking about our inner self. This positive personal story is intended to help the reader to recognize the power that they have over the inner critical self which has been created by their environment.

This chapter considers the tensions in Sino-American exchange diplomacy felt in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon’s resignation and replacement by Gerald Ford. Ford lacked domestic political authority and thus was unable to find the negotiating flexibility necessary to achieve a deal to establish official diplomatic relations with Beijing. The resulting deadlock in high-diplomatic negotiations was one cause of stasis and conflict over cultural exchanges in 1974 and 1975 that culminated in the last-minute cancellation of a tour by a famous Chinese performing arts troupe, news that made the front pages of US newspapers. This chapter also examines the more gradual accumulation of tension in exchanges arising from American resentment at tight controls on visitors to China and Chinese resentment at impolitic behavior by American guests, ranging from photographing evidence of Chinese “backwardness” to drunken brawls.

This chapter studies elite sport in Classical Athens and its relationship to war. It argues that this relationship explains why non-elite citizens support pro-sport policies.

Of all types of Greek benefaction, agonistic festivals – that is, festivals that revolved around athletic, dramatic or cultural contests – may have been the most central to the phenomenon of civic euergetism in the Greek cities of the Hellenistic and Roman period. Core questions of the chapter are: What was the significance of the fact that public festivals were paid and organised by private benefactors? Why did benefactors do this? And what was it that cities stood to gain? The main argument is that agonistic festivals were not simply an object of euergetism but also a medium through which euergetism evolved. They not only were an opportunity for elite benefactors (and athletes) to increase their prestige but were primarily mass events where benefactors and their communities were jointly involved in representing the central social, cultural and political values of the time.

Since the late nineteenth century, scholars have discussed if Greek athletes were ‘amateurs’ or ‘professionals’. Analysing the ancient evidence on time, money, social status and group identity, this article argues that neither of the two terms helps in understanding the social reality of ancient athletes.

Athletic competition played an important role in ancient Greek and Roman culture. From the earliest days, competitive athletics included the combat sports of boxing, wrestling and pankration. Though athletic combat sports continued during the Roman period along with the increase in agonistic festivals and retained their popularity and importance, the spectacle of gladiatorial combat itself also spread throughout the Roman Empire, including the Greek eastern sections. Combat sports presented the spectator with extreme acts of violence which were potentially even fatal. But that violence was controlled and purposive. It took place in ceremonial contexts – funerals, or religious festivals primarily – with athletes wearing special uniforms: nudity in the case of combat athletes and identifiable armaments for gladiators. The fights were not violent chaos or murderous free-for-alls, but regulated and controlled by rules and expectations, all monitored by referees and the watching people themselves. These games were able to give visible expression to the values and ideology at the heart of Greek and Roman societies: courage, skill and discipline, perseverance to victory against all adversity and at all costs, even one’s life, and the ostentatious demonstration of personal excellence. The public nature of the performances is critical: it must be seen to be legitimised. Victory in such combat was worthy of immortality.