Kapon Editions Games and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece: Olympia, Delphoi, Isthmia, Nemea, Athens: Olympia, Delphoi, Isthmia, Nemea, Athens. 2nd edition, revised and enlarged

Modelled on the physical exercises and competitions that existed in earlier Near Eastern cultures, hundreds of athletic games took place in Greek antiquity, extending across every area of the Mediterranean in which Greek culture flourished. Of these games, four attained the status of panhellenic games: the Olympic games, held at Olympia in honour of Zeus; the Pythian games at Delphi, at the festival of Apollo; the Isthmian games, at the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia; and the Nemean games, celebrated in the sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea. The Panathenaic games, which took place at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens in honour of Athena, were at their peak equal in brilliance to those held at the panhellenic festivals. In these five games the magnificent culture and ideology of Greek antiquity flourished, and the spectacle of the games gave rise to a sporting tradition that engages the world to this day. This book celebrates the athletes, the games, the sanctuaries, the cities and, above all, the inspiring spirit of the ancient Greeks over a span of a millennium and a half from the earliest mentions of athletics in Homer s Iliad and other literary sources, through the Classical age, and into the Hellenistic, Roman and late antique periods. 2nd Revised and Enlarged ed.