The self-presentation of athletes in the hellenistic period: social identities, political identities, ethnic identities

希腊化时期运动员的自我呈现：社会身份、政治身份、民族身份

• 批准号: 233639866
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Christian Gregor Mann
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Alte Geschichte
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2012-12-31 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/233639866?language=en
• 关键词: self; presentation; athletes; hellenistic; period

The lack of research on Hellenistic sports is obvious: there has never been a conference on this topic and neither a collection of papers nor a monograph has been published by now. The project aims to fill this gap: A collection of all the literary, epigraphic and papyrological data on Greek agonistics in the Hellenistic period is the first step, this collection forms the basis for a prosopography of all known victors in the gymnic and hippic disciplines. Subsequently, the epigrams for agonistic victors will be analyzed in detail, focusing on three identities: the social, the political, and the ethnic identities.In regard to the social identity, it is important to have in mind that agonistic sport, in the Hellenistic period, was not any more an exclusive activity of the aristocracy. Public funding provided able but poor young athletes with money for training and travelling. In consequence the question rises whether the changed social stratigraphy of athletes had an impact on their self-presentation, if they continued to present their athletic success in the tradition of Greek aristocracy or adopted a more democratic manner.The story of the Hellenistic polis was, as recent studies have shown, not a story of decline, but of continuity and adaptation to the new circumstances. The agonistic epigrams have not studied in this context so far, but they also show the unbroken strength of polis identity: the city is presented as a community of agonistic fame. The rhetorical strategies differ from time to time and from region to region, those differences have to be analyzed thoroughly in the project. Furthermore, the consequences of another Hellenistic development have to be studied: Some athletes acted as representatives of kings, and some of the kings themselves took part in the hippic disciplines exploiting their agonistic victories for political purposes.The third dimension to be studied is the ethnic one. Agonistic was seen as a specific formation of Greek culture and was therefore a marker of ethnic difference. But the division line was rather cultural than biological, and therefore it was not impermeable: Some members of the indigenous elites, for example noble Phoenicians, engaged themselves in athletics, which can be understood as an act of Greek identity, as an attempt to connect themselves symbolically with the Greek world. Sources from Ptolemaic Egypt show that, in agonistic contexts, people set their Greco-Macedonian identity over their Egyptian identity.In the course of the project, an international conference shall be organized (followed by publication) and a monograph shall be written.

希腊化运动研究的缺乏是显而易见的：从来没有关于这个主题的会议，到目前为止，既没有论文集也没有专著出版。该项目旨在填补这一空白：收集希腊化时期所有关于希腊竞技的文学，金石学和纸莎草学数据是第一步，这些收集构成了体操和河马学科所有已知胜利者的人学基础。随后，我们将从社会、政治和种族三个方面对竞技运动胜利者的警句进行详细分析。关于社会身份，我们必须记住，在希腊化时期，竞技运动不再是贵族的专属活动。公共资金为有能力但贫穷的年轻运动员提供训练和旅行的资金。因此，问题就来了：运动员的社会阶层的变化是否会影响他们的自我表现，如果他们继续按照希腊贵族的传统来表现自己的运动成就，或者采取一种更民主的方式，希腊化城邦的故事，正如最近的研究所表明的那样，不是一个衰落的故事，而是一个延续和适应新环境的故事。到目前为止，人们还没有在这种背景下研究过这些争斗的警句，但它们也显示了城邦身份的不可分割的力量：城市被呈现为一个争斗的名声的共同体。不同时期、不同地区的英语修辞策略不尽相同，这些差异在本课题中需要深入分析。此外，我们还必须研究希腊化发展的另一个后果：一些运动员充当国王的代表，一些国王自己也参加了河马训练，利用他们在竞赛中的胜利来达到政治目的。Agonistic被认为是希腊文化的一种特殊形式，因此是种族差异的标志。但分界线是文化的，而不是生物的，因此它不是不可渗透的：一些土著精英成员，例如高贵的腓尼基人，从事体育运动，这可以被理解为希腊身份的行为，试图将自己与希腊世界象征性地联系起来。来自埃及托勒密王朝的资料显示，在斗争的背景下，人们将自己的希腊-马其顿身份置于埃及身份之上。在项目过程中，将组织一次国际会议（随后出版），并将撰写一本专著。