The self-presentation of athletes in the hellenistic period: social identities, political identities, ethnic identities

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Gregor Mann
• Subject Area: Ancient History
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 233639866

The lack of research on Hellenistic sports is obvious: there has never been a conference on this topic and neither a collection of papers nor a monograph has been published by now. The project aims to fill this gap: A collection of all the literary, epigraphic and papyrological data on Greek agonistics in the Hellenistic period is the first step, this collection forms the basis for a prosopography of all known victors in the gymnic and hippic disciplines. Subsequently, the epigrams for agonistic victors will be analyzed in detail, focusing on three identities: the social, the political, and the ethnic identities.In regard to the social identity, it is important to have in mind that agonistic sport, in the Hellenistic period, was not any more an exclusive activity of the aristocracy. Public funding provided able but poor young athletes with money for training and travelling. In consequence the question rises whether the changed social stratigraphy of athletes had an impact on their self-presentation, if they continued to present their athletic success in the tradition of Greek aristocracy or adopted a more democratic manner.The story of the Hellenistic polis was, as recent studies have shown, not a story of decline, but of continuity and adaptation to the new circumstances. The agonistic epigrams have not studied in this context so far, but they also show the unbroken strength of polis identity: the city is presented as a community of agonistic fame. The rhetorical strategies differ from time to time and from region to region, those differences have to be analyzed thoroughly in the project. Furthermore, the consequences of another Hellenistic development have to be studied: Some athletes acted as representatives of kings, and some of the kings themselves took part in the hippic disciplines exploiting their agonistic victories for political purposes.The third dimension to be studied is the ethnic one. Agonistic was seen as a specific formation of Greek culture and was therefore a marker of ethnic difference. But the division line was rather cultural than biological, and therefore it was not impermeable: Some members of the indigenous elites, for example noble Phoenicians, engaged themselves in athletics, which can be understood as an act of Greek identity, as an attempt to connect themselves symbolically with the Greek world. Sources from Ptolemaic Egypt show that, in agonistic contexts, people set their Greco-Macedonian identity over their Egyptian identity.In the course of the project, an international conference shall be organized (followed by publication) and a monograph shall be written.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants