Sport has a significant place in our daily life, nor less and perhaps even mor nowadays than in the Ancient times. This attitude was profoundly understood by the Baron Pierre de Coubertin who renewed the Olympic in 1894, claiming that the interest of the students of the Classical world would be awaken by the "dust of the stadium." Sport has an indispensable place and is inseparable from the life of the ancient world in general and that of Greece in particular. Athletic events and competitions were held in fixed dates, in specials sites and edifices erected especially for these events, and in Greece they were always connected to sacred compounds. Odes were composed to honour the winning athletes, and they were highly acclaimed.

The games were so highly esteemed that they continued into the Roman, and several to the Christian era. It is impossible, therefore, to understand the importance of sport in the Roman era without knowing their ambivalent attitude to sport in the Greek world. The Romans, however, do not only follow the Greek tradition but also develop their own sports, altogether alien to the Greek world, such as arena games.

The aim of this seminar is to introduce the different games in Greece and Rome, and the edifices erected for them, their sociological role in their specific society, their artistic manifestations, and the possible connection or interrelations between the athletes’ depiction and that of mythological heroes and gods.