This work by a well–published scholar and award–winning teacher provides an introduction to the history of sport and spectacle in the ancient world from the Ancient Near East through Greek and Hellenistic times and into the Roman Empire.

The book introduces readers to ancient sport history as a growing and exciting field in which scholarly advances and controversies abound. Drawing on archaeological and art historical evidence and on approaches from anthropology and social history, the author goes beyond the traditional focus on the Greek Olympics and the Roman Colosseum to examine the origins, nature and meaning of sport, the sporting activities and spectacles of earlier Mediterranean peoples, local sport and unusual contests, and much more.