ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the intertwined features of Greek sport—bodily performance, gendered representation and cultural hybridity— and attempts to trace their transformations in the long duree of the development of Greek sport. It focuses on the civic festivals along with other publicly staged events that were also liminal and reflexive sites of social agency. The chapter focuses on analysis of elite women, who were involved, in their capacity as benefactors, in a fascinating transformation of Greek performance culture during the Imperial period. Greek agonistic festivals were a balancing act between conflict and accommodation, the latter often achieved through acts of liminality and short-lived expressions of discontent. Leisure theorists have also emphasized the liminal and reflexive nature of sport and recreational activities. The spread of Greek athletics coincided during the Imperial period with the emergence of a hybrid spectacle culture in many Greek-speaking communities.
