This course explores the history and evolution of sport and spectacle in various cultural traditions up to the year 600 CE, but it will also engage with the legacy of ancient sport in a modern context. There will be emphasis on the emergence of the Greek sporting tradition throughout the Mediterranean regions of antiquity and its legacy in the modern Olympics, but other cultural traditions in North Africa and Asia will also be explored. Additional points of emphasis will include the rise of the world of Roman gladiator and the place such bloody spectacles came to occupy within ancient Roman society. The course will utilize a diverse range of primary source materials, literary as well as archaeological, in a comprehensive exploration of the world of ancient sport. Graded on A-F basis only.