An increased appreciation of the importance of athletics in Greek identity and social construction has been a critical area of study for a growing number of scholars for several decades. Indeed, the practice of athletics was a key marker of being Greek, a regular part of life in the polis, and a defining part of aristocratic culture from at least the Archaic Period until the time of the Roman Empire. Less studied, however, is the process by which the practice of athletics came to an end, for the most part, throughout the Hellenic/Roman world by the fourth to fifth centuries c.e. R.’s new book, which is based on her 2011 dissertation, seeks to address the historical context for the decline and disappearance of athletics from the Mediterranean world.

The book is divided into three parts. The introduction provides a useful discussion of the sources (epigraphy, numismatics, literary and legal texts, and archaeological evidence), as well as an overview of previous approaches to the subject. In Part 1, R. turns to a descriptive sweep of athletic practice as it developed in separate parts of the Mediterranean: Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Italy, Gaul and North Africa. Part 2 addresses key questions and issues concerning the end of athletics with separate chapters on topics that are central to understanding the book's main thesis: ‘A Religious Ban?’, ‘An Imperial Ban?’, ‘The Athletic Professionals’, ‘Athletics as an Elite Activity’, ‘The Practical Organization of agones’ and ‘The agon as Spectacle’. The book, which is heavily footnoted, includes illustrations, maps, an extensive bibliography, a select index locorum of ‘Late-Antique Sources’ and a general index. The text has been exceptionally well proofread, and I found very few typos. However, I did find that R.’s argument was at times challenging to follow, and a sterner editorial hand would have benefited the work significantly.

The primary thrust of R.’s argument is that previous scholars’ explanation of the end of athletics in Late Antiquity has focused on disruptions by external invaders (such as the Herulians), the rise of Christianity and its loathing of nudity, and imperial edicts. There has also been too much focus on the games at Olympia and a tendency to view athletics as long having been in decline since the glory days of the Archaic and the Classical periods. As a remedy to these judgements, R. takes a step back and examines the decline in the practice of athletics through a careful and holistic review of evidence from across the Greco-Roman world to see a gradual decrease in the value placed on athletics by masses and elites alike from the late third to fourth centuries c.e., which owes more to economic and social changes.

The varying nature of these shifts can be seen particularly well in R.’s historical treatments of athletic practice in different regions of the Mediterranean. Far from a decline starting in the Hellenistic period, athletic competitions reached the height of their popularity by the middle of the third century c.e. Change came with the inclusion of athletic competitions (agones) in the fourth century c.e. with popular entertainments such as pantomime (p. 81), horse races, a new form of freestyle wrestling called pammachon (pp. 116–17), acrobatics, venationes etc. Well into the fourth century the agones remained popular in older centres like Olympia (pp. 44–7), and they even remained popular in venues like Antioch well into the fifth century c.e. and ended only in the sixth century c.e. (pp. 100–4). Over time the agones as part of this broader set of entertainments became increasingly popular as the old circuit of athletic competitions declined (pp. 169–71).

In the second part of the book, R. sharpens her argument that the decline in athletics was primarily due to changes in the economic situation and professional practice rather than imperial edict or even the attacks of Christian authorities in a series of six connected chapters. First, she strongly rejects traditional explanations that Christian moralising or the political authorities had brought about the end of athletic competition by pointing to the removal of the agones from pagan ritual during the fourth century c.e. (pp. 187–91), and by the fifth-century, elements of Christian practice, such as making the sign of the cross, began to appear as part of the ritual in the circus (p. 195). Equally suspect for R. are notions of an effective banning of the games by the emperors, who, on the contrary, continued to finance them well into the early fifth century (pp. 213–14). In place of these more traditional explanations for the decline of athletics, R. focuses on a more nuanced and complex set of reasons that range from the economic to the social.

In one of the most illuminating sections of the book, R. discusses the impact of the well-known calamities of the fourth century c.e. on the practice of athletics. The economic dislocations of this period led to the confiscation of public land and resources, political centralisation, as well as hyper-inflation (pp. 298–309), realities that made the costly performance of the agones by themselves more challenging, though not impossible. Power and wealth now was focused more in provincial capitals, and this led to a decline of regional athletic circuits and a greater focus on ‘Roman-style’ entertainments, among which traditional athletes increasingly found themselves as performers (pp. 323–34). The change was more than simply a matter of venue. Roman gladiators and actors had a stigma of infamia attached to their vocations that was alien to the high esteem that athletes of the Greek world enjoyed. However, with the inclusion of their agones among the spectacula, many athletes became mere performers with their activities having little more than a passing resemblance to the civic glory of their forebears. There were some tenacious holdouts among traditional athletes in the fifth to sixth centuries c.e., but expense, distance and a refusal to change gradually caused them to fade away (pp. 340–2, 346–8).

The strengths and weaknesses of this book are reminiscent of J. Delorme's magisterial Gymnasion (1960) with its chapters concerning larger issues in gymnastic practice and architecture separated from sections on the source material for athletic facilities arranged on a geographic and chronological basis. A benefit of the region-by-region approach in Part 1 of R.’s book is that differences in terms of development and practice are highlighted in a manner that would be lost in a more synthetic approach. The reader can easily dip into R.’s work as a matter of reference to athletic practice in a particular region from the earliest practice of the agones to the time of their decline and end in each place. In Part 2, R.’s focus on the economic and social aspects that led to the decline of athletics are particularly important, and she has made a significant contribution both to the history of sport as well as to our understanding of this important and under-appreciated aspect of late-antique society.

There is, however, a repetitive quality to Part 1 and a tendency on the part of R. to reference items that will be important in later discussions that may become frustrating for an impatient reader. A similar issue arises in Part 2 as the reader is challenged to recall the large mass of material that is critical for fully appreciating R.’s arguments about the reasons for the decline of athletics that occurred much earlier in the work. These criticisms, however, are less important, as R. has produced a significant work of scholarship both for historians of Late Antiquity and of sport history.