Competition and rivalry in antiquity have been a reliable inspiration of stimulating work for decades and this trend continues with the current volume, based on a panel at the Fourth Celtic Classics Conference in Lampeter in 2006. The collection meets the editors' goal of taking an important step towards a ‘comprehensive and systematic analysis of the roles and rules of ancient competition’ (p. ix). The ten essays – organised in three sections on competition in comparative perspective, in Greece and in Rome – observe no unifying definition of competition, as is perhaps only to be expected given their cultural breadth and occasional treatment of relatively unexplored topics. A clear strength of the book is its cultural diversity, which is especially useful for classicists (including the present reviewer) generally unfamiliar with competition outside of Greek and Roman contexts.
Van Wees, ‘Rivalry in History: an Introduction’, argues that the competitive drive is inherently social and recognisable even in two famously co-operative hunter-gatherer tribes of Africa, the Mbuti pygmies and the Ik. He then turns to south-eastern Turkey to illustrate his contention that competition has been a force for historical change since 10,000 b.c. The religious monuments at Göbekli Tepe are memorials of its paleolithic builders' economic success: surplus food exchanged for labour created massive tokens of prestige. By establishing social status as the ultimate aim of all forms of rivalry, this bold and stimulating chapter is a good starting point for the volume as a whole. K. Radner, ‘Fame and Prizes: Competition and War in the Neo-Assyrian Empire’, examines the Assyrian military's hierarchy from 900–700 b.c. Soldiers in battle strove for material goods – calculated by the status of their decapitated foes, as attested by seventh-century reliefs on palace walls at Nineveh – and eternal life in fame. Competition among contingents was encouraged by the army's multinational makeup. Assyrian kings competed, by contrast, with predecessors, at least until the late-eighth century. Competitive struggles within various social classes of the Aztec empire are the topic of F. Berdan's ‘Levels and Strategies of Competition in the Aztec Empire’. Growing populations, scarce resources, environmental hardships and fragmented rule created disputes between city-states, and between city-states and the empire's central government. The elite outshone each other with conspicuous displays of wealth, advantageous marriages and factions, while commoners presumably fought to survive. Between these two groups thrived the rising merchant class tasked with supplying the elite's luxuries.
C. Ulf, ‘Ancient Greek Competition: a Modern Construct?’, considers the extent to which nineteenth- and twentieth-century English and German studies of ancient Greek athletic competition and its class-based ideologies were shaped by contemporary political and economic thought. Treatments of Greek agonistic culture were heavily influenced by the cultural and economic rise of the middle class, increasing participation in sport and athletic professionalisation. Historians like John Mahaffy and Ernst Curtius agreed that a ‘pure’ form of socially and politically beneficial Greek amateur competition was eventually replaced by professionals vying for health, wealth and success in other agonistic arenas of the polis. U.'s thought-provoking analysis concludes with the suggestion – particularly unsettling for the volume as a whole – that current studies might similarly reflect the contemporary world of their authors. W. Allan and D. Cairns' rigorously argued chapter, ‘Conflict and Community in the Iliad’, demonstrates the extent to which the army's communal norms are the basis of Homer's presentation of the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles and their subsequent reactions. Building on recent scholarship, the authors show that the two heroes acknowledge the ultimate authority of the community, while undermining it by privileging their own personal claims to honour. Achilles' withdrawal illustrates not the system's failure to resolve conflict, but its limitations in the face of an individual's excessive valuation of himself. In ‘Peer-Polity Interaction and Cultural Competition in Sixth-Century Greece’, S. Forsdyke examines late sixth-century Sicyon's use of popular tradition to invent a Dorian identity for itself. Central is Herodotus' strange account (5.67–8) of the tyrant Cleisthenes' alleged earlier attempt to disassociate Sicyon from Argos by, inter alia, maliciously renaming three Dorian tribes with geographic names as ‘Pigmen’, ‘Assmen’ and ‘Swinemen’. Utilising recent work on social memory and competitive construction of ethnic identity in the archaic period, F. draws the fascinating conclusion that anti-tyrannical popular tradition created anti-Argive Cleisthenes in order to lend authenticity to Sicyon's claims of Doric ethnicity as it sought to ally with Sparta. N. Fisher, ‘Competitive Delights’, argues that the participation of Athenian citizens of ‘middling’ economic status in tribe-based choral and athletic events was greater than has hitherto been recognised. The growing access to such competitions to non-elite citizens was necessitated by an increase in competitive events following the Cleisthenic reforms, significant decreases in the Athenian population between 431–404 b.c. and substantial economic and social mobility in and out of the elite class. By adducing the high number of Attic choral and athletic events, evidence from demographics and texts, and mentalities (e.g. that middling to poor citizens were, like other citizens, just as vulnerable to ‘the pressures of pleonexia and philotimia’, p. 199), F. makes a convincing case that a significant number of citizens outside the liturgy-paying class would have participated.
Opening the section on Rome, H. Mouritsen, ‘Lottery and Elections: Containing Elite Competition in Venice and Rome’, treats the centuria praerogatiua, a protection against excessive competition in the Roman electoral process, through the analogous lottery system of the Venetian state from a.d. 1297. The centuria praerogatiua, a randomly selected century chosen to make the opening vote, was considered divine intervention and thus traditionally followed by the remaining centuries. Since its identity was unknown until the moment of its selection, this century could not be bribed. In H. Platts' study of the villa, ‘Keeping up with the Joneses: Competitive Display within the Roman Villa Landscape’, country estates of the Roman elite are a focal point of public displays of status from the late Republic into the Empire. Elites expressed their social status and wealth using various building-strategies. Control of the landscape was demonstrated by man-made lakes, fountains, dams, tunnels and underground triclinia. Villas become ‘pseudo-civic’ spheres collapsing the urban and the rural with frescoes of cityscapes, constructed theatres and hippodromes, and benches for clients. Villas offering expansive views of Rome also themselves appeared as mini-cities from their hillside locations. P.'s paper reminds one of Augustus' devotion to extremely modest villas, a commitment which led him to demolish the lavish residence of his granddaughter Julia (Suet. Aug. 72.3). Such a refusal to engage with those of lower status is itself a competitive gesture, as we learn in J. König's chapter on the ambivalence of competition in Philostratus' Lives of the Sophists. For good and bad, the quarrels of the sophists Herodes Atticus, Polemo, Favorinus and others are given heroic dimensions by the biographer, who celebrates rivalry which encourages achievement and criticises that which devolves into personal invective. Despite taking pains to remain above these disputes, Philostratus shows his competitive streak when underscoring his own important role in the memorialising.
The editors acknowledge that this volume hardly makes a dent in this complex topic. It will none the less be of particular value to classicists seeking comparative evidence for competition and a sense of its dynamics as a form of status-oriented social interaction, although the nature of that status varies by context. While competitors like the Homeric and Assyrian warrior seek a distinction separating them from their peers, archaic Sicyon and the non-elite citizens of classical Athens seek a status or identity predicated on integration into a larger community. This volume is an important springboard for further research and a credit to its editors and the press.
