Greek Female Sport

Abstract

This chapter surveys the significance of sport for Greek girls and women, from local rituals to physical education and competition in major festivals, from early Greece to the Roman Empire. Greek society of the Archaic and Classical periods offered few opportunities for females to compete physically. Spartan female physical education and indirect female equestrian victories at Olympia were anomalous. After the Classical period, however, attitudes to female sport changed significantly. Encouraged by the Ptolemies of Alexandria, Greek royal females of the Hellenistic period became prominent, albeit still indirect, equestrian victors. During the Roman period, traditional Greek female sporting rituals continued, and opportunities for female sporting competitors increased within the burgeoning system of Greco-Roman spectacles and games. Ironically, the “golden age” of Greek female sport was not Classical Greece but rather the Early Roman Empire. The Roman era brought more sporting access for daughters of nobles and officials.

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