Quellendokumentation zu den antiken Laufbewerben

30 years ago people were already conscious of the necessity of a collection and treatment (or consideration) of the references about gymnastics and agonistics in Greek and Roman antiquity. Till now the then announced collection of the fragments of ancient writers on the subject sport is not published. This fact is faced with an increasing interest in agonistic-gymnastic themes in classical studies as can be shown by numerous bibliographies (i.e. the yearly published bibliography in the periodical Nikephoros). This interest in ancient sports has recently surpassed the circle of scientists in classical antiquity; an increasing number of representatives of systematic social scientists is dealing with problems of the phenomenon `sport`. For the dealing with ancient cultures they are often lacking the special knowledges (in particular the knowledge of the ancient languages, but also of history and civilization of antiquity). Therefore a detailed and commented collection of references to ancient agonistics and gymnastics including all sorts of references - to get a kind of corpus of agonistics and gymnastics - is something lacking not only for many classical historians and sport historians, but for social scientists, anthropologists etc. too. The main aim of the "Quellendokumentation zur Gymnastik und Agonistik im Altertum" (QGAA) was to registrate and comment the literary references. Results and possible utilizations The hitherto seven volumes of QGAA (Diskos/discus throwing, Speerwurf/javelin throwing, Weit-sprung/long jump, Boxen/boxing, Pankration, Ringen/wrestling) is a practical basis to sport and classical historians as well as to social scientists and anthropologists etc. to enable them to deepen their research dealing with sports in antiquity. Method The references for the discipline "Running" treating the period from the 8th c. BCE to the 12th c. CE were collected (by studying the scientific literature relevant to the subject and by using electronic data bases) and registrated in original language (in Greek or Latin) with a German translation. Despite the great amount of the registrated references in this volume we were not able to aim at completeness, i.e. consideration of each single mentioning of running in ancient literature. The Annotated Index puts together in 30 categories with further subdividings 1. the substantial relevant quotations of ancient texts, offers 2. a short presentation of the research done in the past and 3. points to further literature relevant to the subject. The volume is intended to make possible a direct, calculated approach to the contents of the references that are presented in the first part and to the problems in research connected with running in antiquity. International co-operation Especially in providing scientific literature to the subject we enjoyed close co-operation with Prof. Wolfgang Decker from the Institute of History of Sports in Köln; exchange of ideas was possible with Barbara Rieger of the same institute who is working on a thesis about "stadia in antiquity". With Prof. Paola Angeli Bernardini of the University of Urbino/Italy a conception for an agonistic lexicon was developed and shall be finished in co-operation with several classical scientists.