"From the first to the third century A.D. Greek athletics flourished as never before. This book offers new readings of those developments. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, it sheds new light on practices of athletic competition and athletic education in the Roman Empire. In addition it examines the ways in which athletic activity was represented within different texts and contexts, and the controversies it attracted. It argues for complex connections between different areas of athletic representation, particularly between literary and epigraphical texts. It offers re-interpretations of a number of major authors, especially Lucian, Dio Chrysostom, Pausanias, Silius Italicus, Galen and Philostratus."--Jacket.