Volume 27 / Issue 2
Special Issue: Exploring 5000 Years of Athletics
On the cover: Two Greek vases showing ancient athletic competitions.
Left: Black-figure amphora depicting a boxing match, late 6th century BC. Collection Object Number: MS403
Right: Red-figure kylix with wrestling scene. 500-475 BC. Collection Object Number: MS2444
Photo by Fred Schoch.
The Game of Trigon
By: Donald White
From Roman Athletics: Classical Antecedents to the National Mania “All at once we saw a bald old man [Trimalchio–Ed.] in a reddish shirt playing at ball with some long-haired boys. It was not the boys that attracted our notice, though they deserved it, but the old gentleman, who was in his house-shoes, busily engaged with […]
Etruscan Athletics
Glimpses of an Elusive Civilization
By: Karen Brown Vellucci
Background The Etruscans represent one of the earliest examples of biased media coverage—a problem originating with the authors of antiquity that has been perpetuated by modern scholars and writers. Graeco-Roman sources used such epithets as cruel, deceitful, degenerate in describing the Etruscans; Etruscan women were called wanton and their behavior was compared to that of […]
Boycotts, Bribes and Fines
The Ancient Olympic Games
By: David Gilman Romano
The modern Olympic Gaines are now one of the most widely publicized events in the world. In 1984, it was estimated that between two and three billion people from all corners of the globe had watched on television at least a part of the 23rd Olympic Games held in Los Angeles; hundreds of thousands more […]
“Trials of Strength”
Athletics in Mesopotamia
By: Ake W. Sjoberb
Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk (modern Warka in southern Iraq), was on his way to the place where a couch had been prepared for the “sacred marriage” between him and the goddess Ishhara. When he approached the place where this wedding was to be performed, Enkidu, who had been sent into Uruk to compete with […]
Introduction – Fall 1985
By: David Gilman Romano
One of the most popular aspects of modern western culture is its universal interest in sports and athletics. Our world is permeated with athletic contests, youthful athletic images, athletic slogans and athletic accouterments. College and professional athletics are multi-million dollar businesses, and the modern Olympic Gaines have taken on major world political, social. and economic […]
The History of Sporting America
Philadelphia Pastimes
By: John L. Cotter
Archaeological traces of sports are often ephemeral, especially in North America. The Indians left a few ball courts, notably in the Southwest, various gaining pieces, a snow snake here and a chunky stone there, and accounts in ethnological records (see Becker’s article on lacrosse in this issue). European and other immigrants left a little more […]
Lacrosse
Political Organization in North America as Reflected in Athletic Competition
By: Marshall Joseph Becker
Introduction The increasing popularity of lacrosse on college playing fields and in other schools and clubs throughout North America reflects the renewed interest in a vigorous sport which is native to this continent. A review of the origins of this fast moving competition offers us some insight into the lives of the people who introduced […]
The Rubber Ball Game
A Universal Mesoamerican Sport
By: Christopher Jones
An extremely athletic sport was played by the Aztec, the Maya, and other peoples of Prehispanic Mesoamerica, that area of complex societies in what is now Mexico and Central America (see Fig. 2). In the game, a heavy solid rubber ball about 6 inches in diameter was volleyed back and forth in a specially constructed […]
Roman Athletics
Classical Antecedents to the National Mania
By: Donald White
I: Contrasting Attitudes “Modern versus the Antique “In the Michaelmas term after leaving school, Tom Brown received a summons from the authorities and went up to matriculate at St. Ambrose’s College, Oxford. . . . He had left school in June and did not go up to reside at Oxford till the end of the […]
