Pheidippides

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For the comic character Pheidippides, see the Clouds.
Pheidippides

Statue of Pheidippides alongside the Marathon Road.
Born circa 530 BC
Athens
Died circa 490 BC
Athens

Pheidippides (Greek: Φειδιππίδης, sometimes given as Phidippides, by Herodotus and Plutarch,[1] or as Philippides), hero of Ancient Greece, is the central figure in a story that was the inspiration for a modern sporting event, the marathon.

The story

Painting of Pheidippides as he gave word of the Greek victory over Persia at the Battle of Marathon to the people of Athens.
Luc-Olivier Merson, 1869

The first recorded account showing a courier running from Marathon to Athens to announce victory is from within Lucian's prose on the first use of the word Joy as a greeting in A Slip of the tongue in Greeting.[2]

... Philippides, the one who acted as courier, is said to have used it first in our sense when he brought the news of victory from Marathon and addressed the magistrates in session when they were anxious how the battle had ended ; "Joy to you, we've won" he said, and there and then he died, breathing his last breath with the words "Joy to you". – Lucian translated by K.Kilburn.[3]
... The modern use of the word dates back to Philippides the dispatch-runner. Bringing the news of Marathon, he found the archons seated, in suspense regarding the issue of the battle. 'Joy, we win!' he said, and died upon his message, breathing his last in the word Joy ... – Lucian Pro lapsu inter salutandum (translated by F.G. and H.W. Fowler, 1905)[4]

The traditional story relates that Pheidippides (530 BC–490 BC), an Athenian herald or hemerodrome[2] (translated as "day-runner" (Kyle 2007),[5] "courier" (Larcher 1806),[6][7] "professional-running courier" (Sears 2003)[2] or "day-long runner" (Miller 2006)[8]), was sent to Sparta to request help when the Persians landed at Marathon, Greece. He ran about 240 km (150 mi) in two days. He then ran the 40 km (25 mi) from the battlefield near Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia in the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) with the word νικῶμεν (nikomen[9] "We have won"), as stated by Lucian chairete, nikomen ("hail, we are the winners")[10] to then collapse and die.

Most accounts incorrectly attribute this story to the historian Herodotus, who wrote the history of the Persian Wars in his Histories (composed about 440 BC). However, Magill and Moose (2003) suggest that the story is likely a "romantic invention." They point out that Lucian is the only classical source to which all the elements existed of the story known in modern culture as the "Marathon story of Phillipedes": a messenger running from the fields of Marathon to announce victory, then dying on completion of his mission.[11]

Robert Browning gave a version of the traditional story in his 1879 poem Pheidippides.

So, when Persia was dust, all cried, "To Acropolis!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!
Athens is saved, thank Pan, go shout!" He flung down his shield
Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the fennel-field
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,
Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, - the bliss!

("Fennel-field" is a reference to the Greek word for fennel, marathon, the origin of the name of the battlefield.)

It was this poem which inspired Baron Pierre de Coubertin and other founders of the modern Olympic Games to invent a running race of 42 km called the Marathon.

The story is controversial for anyone who suspects that Athenians would more likely have sent the messenger on horseback. However, it may have been possible that they used a runner, as a horse's movements would have been hindered by the rocky, mountainous terrain. Furthermore, humans are unusually good distance runners. Most animals tend to collapse of hyperthermia (which in humans is called heat exhaustion) after 10 to 15 km (6 to 9 miles). Horses are most effectively used as couriers over long distances when they can be switched out at way-points a relatively short distance apart, such as with the American Pony Express mail service.

In any case, no such story appears in Herodotus. The relevant passage of Herodotus (Histories, Book VI, 105...106 →) is:

Before they left the city, the Athenian generals sent off a message to Sparta. The messenger was an Athenian named Pheidippides, a professional long-distance runner. According to the account he gave the Athenians on his return, Pheidippides met the god Pan on Mount Parthenium, above Tegea. Pan, he said, called him by name and told him to ask the Athenians why they paid him no attention, in spite of his friendliness towards them and the fact that he had often been useful to them in the past, and would be so again in the future. The Athenians believed Pheidippides's story, and when their affairs were once more in a prosperous state, they built a shrine to Pan under the Acropolis, and from the time his message was received they held an annual ceremony, with a torch-race and sacrifices, to court his protection.

On the occasion of which I speak - when Pheidippides, that is, was sent on his mission by the Athenian commanders and said that he saw Pan - he reached Sparta the day after he left Athens and delivered his message to the Spartan government. "Men of Sparta" (the message ran), "the Athenians ask you to help them, and not to stand by while the most ancient city of Greece is crushed and subdued by a foreign invader; for even now Eretria has been enslaved, and Greece is the weaker by the loss of one fine city." The Spartans, though moved by the appeal, and willing to send help to Athens, were unable to send it promptly because they did not wish to break their law. It was the ninth day of the month, and they said they could not take the field until the moon was full. So they waited for the full moon, and meanwhile Hippias, the son of Pisistratus, guided the Persians to Marathon.

The significance of this story is only understood in the light of the legend that the god Pan returned the favor by fighting with the Athenian troops and against the Persians at Marathon. This was important because Pan, in addition to his other powers, had the capacity to instill the most extreme sort of fear, an irrational, blind fear that paralysed the mind and suspended all sense of judgment – panic.

Herodotus, writing about 30 to 40 years after the events he describes, did, according to Miller (2006) in fact base his version of the battle on eyewitness accounts,[8] so it seems altogether likely that Pheidippides was an actual historical figure, although the same source claims the classical author didn't ever in fact mention a Marathon-Athens runner in any of his writings. For sure, if someone ran the 246 km over rough roads from Athens to Sparta within two days, it would be an achievement worthy of remembrance. Whether the story is true or not, it has no connection with the Battle of Marathon itself, and Herodotus's silence on the subject of a herald running from Marathon to Athens suggests strongly that no such event occurred.

The first known written account of a run from Marathon to Athens occurs in the works of the Greek writer Plutarch (46–120), in his essay On the Glory of Athens. Plutarch attributes the run to a herald called either Thersippus or Eukles. Lucian, a century later, credits one "Philippides." It seems likely that in the 500 years between Herodotus's time and Plutarch's, the story of Pheidippides had become muddled with that of the Battle of Marathon (particularly the story of the Athenian forces making the march from Marathon to Athens in order to intercept the Persian ships headed there), and some fanciful writer had invented the story of the run from Marathon to Athens.

Modern times

Monument in Sparta with names of Spartathlon winners

Spartathlon

Main article: Spartathlon

Based on this account, British RAF Wing Commander John Foden and four other RAF officers travelled to Greece in 1982 on an official expedition to test whether it was possible to cover the nearly 250 kilometres in a day and a half. Three runners were successful in completing the distance: John Foden (37:37), John Scholtens (34:30) and John McCarthy in (39:00).

Since 1983 it has been an annual footrace from Athens to Sparta, known as the Spartathlon, celebrating Pheidippides's at least semi-historical run across 246 km of Greek countryside.

Course records
  • M: 20:25:00, Yiannis Kouros (GRE), 1984
  • F: 27:02:17, Elizabeth Hawker (GBR), 2012

In popular culture

Theatrical release poster

Sources

  1. ↑ Nick Sekunda. Marathon 490 Bc:The First Persian Invasion of Greece. Osprey Publishing, 18 Oct 2002. ISBN 1841760005. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Edward Seldon Sears. Running Through the Ages. McFarland, 2001. Retrieved 2012-04-08. 
  3. ↑ John A. Lucas. A History of the Marathon race 490 B.C. to 1975. Pennsylvania State University & Los Angeles 1984 foundation. Retrieved 2012-04-08. 
  4. ↑ Sacred-texts.com Retrieved 2013-12-14
  5. ↑ Donald G. Kyle (Professor and Chair of History at the University of Texas). Sport And Spectacle in the Ancient World. John Wiley & Sons, 2007. ISBN 0631229701. Retrieved 2012-04-08. 
  6. ↑ Herodotus -Herodotus, Volume 3 Leigh and S. Southeby, 1806 Retrieved 2012-04-08
  7. ↑ Larcher, Pierre Henri; Cooley, William Desborough. Larcher's Notes on Herodotus, historical and critical comments on the History of Herodotus, with a chronological table; Translated from the French (1844). London, Whittaker. Retrieved 2012-04-08. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Stephen G. Miller (professor of classical archaeology at the University of California). Ancient Greek Athletics. Yale University Press, 1 Aug 2006. ISBN 0300115296. Retrieved 2012-04-08. 
  9. ↑ University news team (7 September 2011). "News from the University Press releases "Bristol team to mark 2,500th anniversary of the first marathon"". University of Bristol. 
  10. ↑ Herodotus, Robin Waterfield, Carolyn Dewald. The Histories. Oxford University Press, 15 May 2008. Retrieved 2012-04-08. 
  11. ↑ Frank Northen Magill, Christina J. Moose. Dictionary of World Biography: The Ancient World. Taylor & Francis, 23 Jan 2003. ISBN 1579580408. Retrieved 2012-04-08. 
  • Aubrey de Sélincourt and A. R. Burn. Herodotus - The Histories. Penguin Classics, 1954, 1972.

Further reading

  • F. J. Frost. "The Dubious Origins of the Marathon". American Journal of Ancient History, 4 (1979) 159-163.
  • Hans W. Giessen, "Mythos Marathon. Von Herodot über Bréal bis zur Gegenwart". Landau: Verlag Empirische Pädagogik (= Landauer Schriften zur Kommunikations- und Kulturwissenschaft. Band 17) (2010). ISBN 978-3-941320-46-8.

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