ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on representations of the athletic body in ancient Athens during the so-called classical period, from about 480 to 336 BCE. In Greek epinician literature and plastic arts the male athletic body was frequently stereotyped as a token of physical and moral superiority and as a central attribute of manliness. The awestruck reaction of some Athenians in the face of Autolykos's beauty perhaps intimates some of the feelings that athletes, their bodies and their artistic representations, especially in victory statuary, were expected to stir among sport fans. Athletics was a widely popular activity. In a culture that largely promoted the participation of average citizens in athletics and other physical activities in the Panathenaea tribal events and rewarded successful athletes, voices of dissent towards the excesses of the athletic body were symptomatic of the complexity and contested nature of perceptions and practices of sport, masculinity and the male body.
