Pheidippides

Pheidippides (Greek: Φειδιππίδης, Ancient Greek pronunciation: [pʰeː.dip.pí.dɛːs], Modern Greek: [fi.ðiˈpi.ðis]; "Son of Pheídippos") or Philippides (Φιλιππίδης) is the central figure in the story that inspired two modern sporting events, the marathon race and the Spartathlon. Pheidippides is said to have run from Marathon to Athens to deliver news of the victory of the battle of Marathon.

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)
For other uses, see Pheidippides (disambiguation).

Pheidippides
Statue of Pheidippides alongside the Marathon Road
Bornc. 530 BC
Athens
Diedc. 490 BC
Athens

Name

The name Philippides is reported by Pausanias, Plutarch, and Lucian, writers who had read this name in their versions of Herodotus, while in most of Herodotus' manuscripts the form appears Pheidippides.[1]

Other than Herodotus' manuscripts, the form Pheidippides is only attested in Aristophanes' The Clouds, many historians argue that Aristophanes willfully distorted the real name Philippides so as not to use the name of the hero of Marathon in his play, or as a play on words meaning: "save horses". However, given that the name Pheidippo is attested in the Iliad, the existence of a Pheidippides cannot be excluded, but according to many this form remains an error of the copyists of the manuscripts.[2]

Accounts

The traditional story relates that Pheidippides (530–490 BC), an Athenian herald, or hemerodrome[3] (translated as "day-runner,"[4] "courier,"[5][6] "professional-running courier"[3] or "day-long runner"[7]), was sent to Sparta to request help when the Persians landed at Marathon, Greece. He ran about 240 km (150 mi) in two days, and then ran back. He then ran the 40 km (25 mi) to the battlefield near Marathon and back to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia in the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) with the word νικῶμεν (nikomen[8] "We win!"), as stated by Lucian chairete, nikomen ("hail, we are the winners")[9] and then collapsed and died.

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 (2nd century AD).[3]

... Philippides, the one who acted as messenger, 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 (translation by K. Kilburn)[10]

... The modern use of the word dates back to Philippides the dispatch-runner. Bringing the news of the victory in 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[11]

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 with all the elements of the story known in modern culture as the "Marathon story of Pheidippides": a messenger running from the fields of Marathon to announce victory, then dying on completion of his mission.[12]

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!

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

This poem inspired Baron Pierre de Coubertin and other founders of the modern Olympic Games to invent a running race of approximately 40 km (25 miles) called the marathon. In 1921, the length of marathons became standardized at 42.195 km (26 miles, 385 yards).

In any case, no such story appears in Herodotus. The relevant passage of Herodotus is:[13]

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. — Herodotus[13]

The Soldier of Marathon announcing the Victory (1834) by Jean-Pierre Cortot; Louvre, Paris

The significance of this story is to be 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 an irrational, blind fear that paralyzed 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,[7] so it seems altogether likely that Pheidippides was an actual historical figure according to most historians.[14]

Miller also asserts that Herodotus did not ever, in fact, mention a Marathon-to-Athens runner in any of his writings. Whether the story is true or not, it has no connection with the Battle of Marathon itself, and Herodotus's silence on the evidently dramatic incident 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 AD), 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 (in particular with 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.

Monument in Sparta with names of Spartathlon winners

Spartathlon
Main article: Spartathlon

Based on Herodotus's 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 (155 miles) in a day and a half (36 hours). Three runners were successful in completing the distance: John Scholtens (34h30m), John Foden (37h37m), and John McCarthy (39h00m).

Since 1983, it has been an annual footrace from Athens to Sparta, known as the Spartathlon, celebrating Pheidippides's run (according to Herodotus) across 246 km (153 miles) of Greek countryside.

Course records

References
  1. Lazenby, John Francis. The Defence of Greece 490-479 BC, Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1993, p. 52, ISBN 0-85668-591-7.
  2. Dennis L. Fink, The Battle of Marathon in Scholarship, McFarland, 2014, p. 138,ISBN 978-0-7864-7973-3.
  3. Sears, Edward Seldon (2001). Running through the Ages. McFarland. ISBN 9780786450770. Retrieved 8 April 2012.
  4. Kyle, Donald G. (18 September 2006). Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0631229701. Retrieved 8 April 2012.
  5. Herodotus (1806). Histories. Vol. 3. Translated by Southeby, Leigh; Southeby, S. Retrieved 8 April 2012 – via Google Books.
  6. Larcher, Pierre Henri; Cooley, William Desborough (1844). Larcher's Notes on Herodotus: Historical and critical comments on the History of Herodotus, with a chronological table; translated from the French. London, Whittaker. Retrieved 8 April 2012.
  7. Miller, Stephen G. (1 August 2006). Ancient Greek Athletics. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300115296. Retrieved 8 April 2012.
  8. 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.
  9. Herodotus; Waterfield, Robin; Dewald, Carolyn (15 May 2008). The Histories. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199535668. Retrieved 8 April 2012.
  10. Lucas, John A. A History of the Marathon race 490 BC to 1975. Pennsylvania State University & Los Angeles 1984 Foundation.
  11. Lucian (1905). Pro lapsu inter salutandum. Retrieved 14 December 2013. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  12. Magill, Frank Northen; Moose, Christina J. (23 January 2003). The Ancient World. Dictionary of World Biography. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 1579580408. Retrieved 8 April 2012 – via Google Books.
  13. Herodotus. Histories. Book VI, 105...106 – via Gutenberg.org.
  14. "Pheidippides: Is the ancient Greek marathon runner remembered for the wrong run?".

Sources
  • Herodotus (1972) [1954]. Herodotus – The Histories. Translated by de Sélincourt, Aubrey; Burn, A.R. Penguin Classic.

Further reading
  • Frost, Frank J. (1979). "The dubious origins of the 'marathon'". American Journal of Ancient History. 4 (2): 159–62.
  • Giessen, Hans W. (2010). Mythos Marathon: Von Herodot über Bréal bis zur Gegenwart (in German). Landau, DE: Verlag Empirische Pädagogik (= Landauer Schriften zur Kommunikations- und Kulturwissenschaft. Band 17). ISBN 978-3-941320-46-8.
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