Appropriately for the ‘boom’ in ancient sports' studies, this collection of essays in the Oxford Readings series extends to two volumes. The same preface, introduction and bibliography are printed in both, but the indexes are separate. The selection has avoided duplicating any content from J. König's (ed.) Greek Athletics (2010) and is quite different from the specially commissioned essays in P. Christesen and D. Kyle, A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity (2014); that volume tries to outline current thinking and has a focus on sport in society. S.’s aim ‘to offer a broad overview of scholarship, to cover a wide variety of topics, and to illustrate a diversity of critical methods' also by its scope leads inexorably to a multi-volume selection of readings. Both volumes are divided into three sections, each with its own introduction by S. The first volume offers ‘Greek Sports: Heroes and Origins'; ‘Greek Sports: Contesting the Olympics'; and ‘Greek Sports: Enigmas and Solutions of the Greek Contests', while the second volume covers ‘Greek Sports: Identity, Status and the Athlete’; ‘Greek Sports in the Roman Era’; and ‘Etruscan and Roman Sports and Spectacle’. Most of the pieces have an addendum that briefly surveys subsequent developments. The editorial material expertly sets the essays in context.

There is, sensibly, no attempt to impose a rigid chronological framework across the ancient world. In Vol. 1 Section 1, S.’s addendum to his ‘Women, Bull Sports, Cults, and Initiation in Minoan Crete’ (1999) looks at recent work on bull leaping in the Near East, where Syrian depictions are earlier than the Cretan material. In the same section, W.H. Willis, ‘Athletic Contests in the Epic’ (1941), follows athletics in the genre as far as the Roman period. In Section 2 of Vol. 1 the focus is entirely on Olympia. U. Sinn's exploration of the importance of the cult of Zeus in the genesis of the Olympics (1991) is lauded by S. as ‘the best current attempt to explain the complex evolution of the earliest Olympics' (p. 117). N. Crowther (1996) asks whether there was a selection procedure to qualify for the Olympics. Questions of state sponsorship and individual initiative are discussed, fitness and financing figure prominently. A. Farrington (1997) ends the section with an examination of Olympic victors in the imperial period, using an array of graphs based on inscriptions (500 b.c.–a.d. 300) to show the relative popularity of the games at different times and in different regions. The limitations of the epigraphic evidence are duly noted.

In Section 3 of Vol. 1, S. has selected papers with varied approaches. S. Miller (1980) uses his discoveries at Nemea to assess whether lanes were used in the stadium. The north end of the stadium has been eroded, but the southern end produced some distinctive features including a post socket in a square limestone block set in the fourth-century race track 5.30 m north of the starting line and 3.40 m west of the central axis. Miller considers this an apt placement of the turning post for the longer races (dolichos and hippios) but a recipe for congestion, fouls and jostling if used for the diaulos. For that ‘double pipe’ he suggests a turning post and two lanes for each contestant to avoid collisions, an interpretation which accords nicely with the name of the race. The putative use of lanes raises the question of how they were marked. The use of lime in the subsequent revival of the Nemean games recorded in the addendum was useful since competitors were inclined to stray into neighbouring lanes. Any hope of finding traces of lime in an ancient stadium was shown to be futile by the disappearance of the modern markings within two or three years of exposure to the weather. D. Kyle (1990) tackles the vexed question of how the pentathlon was organised and how a winner was established. To lay the issue starkly before us, Kyle quotes W. Sweet (1987), ‘Almost all we know from ancient evidence is that there were five events … that three victories were required to win, and that wrestling was the last event’. On such foundations are edifices of speculation built. The extensive bibliography, Kyle aptly remarks, ‘has been feeding off itself’. He proceeds to focus on three issues: the sequence of events, the origin and status of the pentathlon and the method of establishing a winner. As with the question of lanes, the lack of evidence for the number of competitors makes speculation particularly difficult.

In the second volume, Section 1 opens with a pioneering sociological study of ancient sport by H. Pleket (2001). Though it is not updated, there are ten addenda on points he disarmingly states were made ‘with perhaps a little too much youthful self-confidence’. The most contentious issue concerns the social origins of athletes, and the juxtaposition of this paper with the following short lecture by D. Young (1983) highlights the different positions taken by scholars. On p. 37 Pleket makes a case for Koroibos, the first Olympic victor in 776 b.c., being a type of priest called mageiros (‘cook’) and thus not of humble origin. On p. 89 Young counters by mentioning two other victors, a goatherd (who could catch hares) and a cowherd. Neither examines the context in Athenaeus where Koroibos is first called mageiros. A short summary of the form and function of the gymnasion by W. Decker (1995) is followed by S.’s own contribution, ‘Racing for Hera’ (2002). The evidence for the Heraia at Olympia has some serious gaps, but S. is not daunted: for example, although the date of the Heraia remains uncertain, S. offers compelling arguments in his addendum to support the view that they were held at the same time as the main Olympics festival.

Section 2 of Vol. 2 takes Greek athletics to Rome, despite athletic competitions being regarded ‘as a foreign institution’. U. Sinn (1998) briefly reports on the discovery of the hall of a guild of athletes at Olympia. Begun under Nero and finished under the Flavians, it continued in use until the end of the fourth century a.d. It is notable for the light it sheds on the early Imperial period at Olympia, the period after the ‘Herulian invasion’, athletic guilds and their relationship with the imperial house.

In Section 3 of Vol. 2, the focus shifts from athletics via the Etruscans to the Roman arena and circus. For the opening of this section S. has chosen G. Gori's study (1986/7) of Etruscan sport and its relationships with both Greek athletics and Roman games. This is a tantalising area, for Etruscan practice can be superficially similar, but is also markedly different. The Tomba delle Olimpiadi in Tarquinia, for example, has a fresco apparently of a discobolos, but enough of his legs survive to make it certain he is running. Gori asks whether this could be the ancestor of ruzzola – a game that involves a run-up to roll a wooden discus or whole cheese. K. Welch (1994) offers a re-evaluation of the republican arena in Italy. After dismissing any link between the first stone amphitheatre of 70 b.c. (at Pompeii) and fourth-century b.c. tomb paintings (in Southern Italy), she finds an origin for the oval shape in the space for wooden structures in the Forum at Rome and an explanation for the early stone amphitheatre at Pompeii in the settlement of veteran colonists in the town. The collection concludes with ‘The Organization of Roman Racing’, one of the eight chapters on chariot racing in H.A. Harris' Sport in Greece and Rome (1972).

Well selected and most helpfully edited, this collection merits a place on academic library shelves for both students and scholars.