By focusing on the relevance of regional identities in the self-presentation of Hellenistic victors, this chapter explores agonistic fame beyond the level of the polis. As the best documented case, the agonistic representation of Thessalian victors is of particular importance. It reveals that Hellenistic horse owners from Thessaly always emphasized their regional instead of their polis identity in order to enhance their horses’ value as objects of prestige and to create a virtual “hall of fame” of victorious horses and their owners. Although this was an exceptional case, regional identities were also expressed by Phokian and Arkadian athletes in the early Hellenistic age. Taken as a whole, the period saw the heyday of Greek federal states; and yet, the basic unit in the agonistic discourse remained the polis.

This chapter unites a multiplicity of individual case studies on the relationship between athletic victors and their hometowns. In Rhodes, the impressive Olympic victories of the second century were based upon a strong aristocracy that served as a guarantor of the success at a time when the political influence of the city diminished after the Third Macedonian War. In a similar manner, third-century Theban victors compensated for their city’s political ill fortune by presenting their hometown as a young and vital community. In Sparta and Messene, competitive constellations were transferred from the political arena to the agonistic sphere. Victor epigrams from both poleis formed part of a political discourse whose pillars were represented by Spartan polis ideology on the one hand and Messenian emphasis on autonomy on the other. All in all, it becomes clear that the polis remained the most important point of reference in the self-presentation of Hellenistic athletes.

Concentrating on questions of ethnic identity, this chapter analyzes cases of non-Greek participation in sporting events of the Hellenistic period. Since “Greekness” was not a biological but a cultural category, athletics became a vehicle for integration into the Hellenic world. Yet this vehicle was used in very different ways. With the aim of becoming part of the Hellenistic world at large, Phoenician competitors participated in major sporting events since the third century, whereas Roman athletes of the Late Hellenistic period competed almost exclusively on the local level in order to enhance their integration into the Greek community they were living in. In both cases, participation in athletic competition served as a marker of Greek identity, as it did in Hellenistic Jerusalem. But although the attempt to become Greek through athletics appears as a well-known behavioral pattern of non-Greek victors, simple self-Hellenization was not necessarily the goal but could take the form of a “subversive submission.”

The Conclusion puts the results of the study into a larger perspective. All throughout the Hellenistic period, the field of athletics played a crucial role in the cultural and political history of the Greek world. Especially the third century can be identified as a heyday of Greek athletics. Various agonistic cultures emerged or existed alongside each other, most notably in Sparta, Thessaly, and Ptolemaic Egypt. With regard to the three different levels of agonistic representation, a logic of compensation is unveiled as a key motif on the level of the polis, whereas different strategies of agonistic representation are detected for the level of the kings. Finally, the emergence of a “new society of victors” including at least twenty-six female horse owners, non-Greeks, and successful royals represents one of the most important historical developments in the history of Hellenistic athletics.

This chapter investigates the role of Hellenistic kings and queens as victorious horse owners. It is asked to which degree the different dynasties of the period used equestrian victories as a means of representation. The fact that Philip II and his son Alexander had a different approach to agonistic competition gave leeway to their successors’ competitive behavior: Whereas the Antigonids and Seleucids refrained from equestrian competition, the Ptolemies became the most successful royal family in terms of athletics. They sponsored promising athletes, established a new category of contests, and were imitated by their courtiers with regard to their engagement in chariot races. In the agonistic context, the Ptolemies presented themselves as a victorious, Macedonian dynasty which integrated the female members of the family into an image of power. The Attalids, in contrast, labelled themselves a loving family of united brothers in which no disputes over the throne ever occurred.

In order to gain a better understanding of the organizational and infrastructural framework in which Hellenistic athletes operated, this chapter offers an overview on new developments in the field of athletics. Such new developments most notably included an enlargement of the agonistic landscape, important building programs in the athletic facilities of the major sanctuaries, and an expansion in the program of sporting events that were generally designed to become more spectacular and entertaining. The period also saw the heyday of the gymnasion and new forms of victory prizes. Fines against corruption were expanded and prospective talent promotion set in in the third century. What emerges is the picture of an innovative period in the history of ancient athletics.

The Introduction sketches the history of research on Hellenistic athletics. It shows that the topic has not achieved much scholarly attention in the past due to the old (and spurious) assumption that the period constituted a “dark age” of sport history. The chapter explains the book’s focus on athletic and equestrian victors and substantiates the study’s methodological approach: Based upon the compilation of a database that includes all the available, mostly epigraphic and literary, sources on Hellenistic athletes, victor epigrams are identified as the key medium for the presentation of agonistic fame in the Hellenistic period. Sixty-one pieces of agonistic poetry form the main evidence for the following case studies. They are grouped into (local, regional, or empire-wide) clusters of epigrams in order to identify characteristic features of the agonistic discourse of each political unit. The aim is to investigate the impact political structures had on the respective agonistic cultures.