The 36 essays that follow were produced in their original versions in the most congenial and stimulating surroundings imaginable - Olympia. The notion of competitive sports - that very particular form of agonalism which the ancient Hellenes have bequeathed to the world - was, predictably enough, our intellectual starting-line. But before we reached the finishing post we found that study of sports and games by themselves was far from sufficient to exhaust the full meanings of this remarkably original cultural activity. Religion, war, peace, political thought, historical and literary reflections - these are just some of the further topics or approaches that our distinguished panel of Europe-wide experts found themselves most fruitfully engaged in and with.