Athens Classic Marathon (The Authentic Marathon), November 12, 2017; "Run, Pheidippides, one race more!"

My daughter has registered to take part in the Athens Authentic Marathon. Very proud.

Race like a goddess! Run like fire once more! But not like Philippides...

Like 50,000 others (?18,000) from all over the world, she will be recalling the heroic efforts of Pheidippides, the long-distance (day-long) despatch- runner, soldier-courier or messenger (hēmerodromos).

Panathenaic amphora 333-332 BC, British Museum. 

Robert Browning's poem

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!

He flung down his shield, ran like fire once more...

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute

Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.

So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the noble strong man

Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god loved so well...

Lord Byron, The Isles of Greece

We are hoping to go to watch the marathon in November:

The mountains look on Marathon— 

And Marathon looks on the sea; 

And musing there an hour alone, 

I dream'd that Greece might still be free 

According to Byron, in a note, the plain of Marathon was offered to him for sale for about £900....

"Was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight".

PHEIDIPPIDES AND THE MARATHON RUN

A letter from T. E. Kinsey (pdf)

The Original 'Marathon-Runner'


The Battle of Marathon, Elizabeth Barrett Browning