Search

The first detailed description of sport in the Western world is found in Book 23 of Homer’s Iliad (c. 800 b.c.e.; English translation, 1616). About two centuries later, drama began to develop in Athens and elsewhere in Greece, as the festivals honoring the god Dionysus became as much public entertainment as religious observance. During the next five hundred years, as Hellenistic ideas spread over the Mediterranean area, the Romans were deeply influenced by Greek concepts of sport and entertainment. Vergil (70-19 b.c.e.), in Book 5 of his Aeneid (c. 29-19 b.c.e.; English translation, 1553), reproduces the funerary games described in the Iliad. Roman playwrights used Greek models, adapting them to suit their own ethnic temperament.