Establishing a Channel of Communication

Abstract

Abstract Starting from the observation that an athletic victor from Aphrodisias is praised for the remarkable fact that he received his victor prize ‘from the hands of the emperor’, this chapter asks if, how and why athletic representation changed from the Hellenistic to the Roman imperial period and what part material culture (i.e. victor inscriptions) played in this process. It analyses how Roman emperors of roughly the first three centuries ad used athletic festivals as a means of establishing a channel of communication with the people of the Greek-speaking parts of the empire. It is also looks at the manners in which emperors were present at these festivals and investigates how they intervened in the agonistic circuit. The final section takes the athletes’ perspective and reveals four new trends in the self-presentation of athletes of the Roman imperial period: the expansion of the frame of reference (‘first of the inhabited earth’), an explicit reference to multiple citizenships and council memberships, an emphasis on the victor’s status as part of an empire-wide aristocracy (‘father of senators’), and a prominence of the motif of the athlete’s proximity to the emperor. No doubt, the way athletes of the imperial period wanted their victories to be understood clearly changed in comparison to their predecessors. Athletes were now part of an empire that was composed of almost the entire inhabited earth. Their self-presentation is indicative of this aspect.