Pheidippides: The ancient messenger who inspired the modern marathon
Words: Ruaidhri Marshall
This is the story of Pheidippides, an ancient Greek soldier fabled as an icon responsible for what we all now recognise as the modern marathon event, a 26.2 mile endurance race ran in every major city around the world.
Take the London Marathon; 40,000+ runners took part in 2019. From elite athletes looking to shave down their PB’s edging closer and closer to the 2-hour mark, to amateur runners dressed as comic superheroes running for honourable charitable causes. Marathons have become nationalised, televised events with around 800 marathons being held throughout the world every year.
Where does our hero Pheidippides, born in 530 BC in Athens, Greece, come into all of this? Well, it includes an ancient Greco-Persian war, a lot of running, and two famed versions of events.
Background history
First, let’s take you back to the Battle of Marathon, which was a focal point of what we now know as the Greco-Persian wars between 499 – 449BC; a sequence of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire (Ancient Persia) and the Greek city-states including Athens, Sparta and Thebes. The Battle of Marathon (490BC) was a decisive turning point and victory with regards to the first Persian invasion for the ancient Greeks, as many scholars document that the Greeks had superior tactics, armour, and geography on their side. History.com has a great article that delves deep into the Battle of Marathon and it’s subsequent events.
Where does our endurance running hero come into play?
Pheidippides
It is said that an Athenian courier/soldier by the name of Pheidippides ran from the aftermath of the Battle of Marathon straight to Athens eager to break the good news. Entering the gates of the ancient Polis city state with open arms hailing the words ‘’nenikēkamen!" which can be translated as ‘’We’ve won’’ at which point he plummets to his knees in exhaustion – only to die at the scene, as portrayed in the painting by Luc-Olivier Merson (1869) below. The distance between Marathon and Athens is around the famously stated 26.2 miles. The legend of Pheidippides encapsulates a man (or myth) who set out and endured what is now a distance completed by hundreds of thousands around the world every year.
Disputed history
This story has been heavily disputed by historians, scholars and everyone in between. For example, an ancient Greek historian by the name of Herodotus states that Athenian runner Pheidippides was ordered to run from Athens all the way to Sparta to ask for assistance before the Battle of Marathon, completing his endurance run in one day and night; this equated to a total distance of 140miles. Other scholars and historians even debate the legitimacy of this story… It is said that if Herodotus’s version of events is true, without Pheidippides running to Sparta asking for more troops, the battle would have been surely a crushing defeat for the Athenians. On the other hand, the glory-filled Marathon to Athens version of events pictures an embellished legend that would make any modern-day marathon runner contemplate his/her ancient run.
Two modern-day depictions
Even if the story of Pheidippides is fractionally true, it has inspired stories and two modern-day marathons dedicated to Pheidippides’s war-fuelled run through ancient Greece, the Spartalon ultra-marathon (155miles) and the Athens Marathon (26.2Miles). The famed authentic Athens Marathon has over 40,000 contestants every year with the finishing point being Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens, the 2010 edition was known as the famed 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon. However, the Spartalon marathon likes to keep to Herodotus’s narrative, in which our ancient endurance runner Pheidippides runs from Athens to Sparta asking for military backup. The race was first founded by John Foden in 1982. He was a British RAF Wing Commander who has an innate love for Greece and it’s ancient history. The Spartalon was born through a wonder if man could run 155 miles in the historically stated day and a half (36hr) run by Pheidippides. John and his fellow runners completed the distance in 37ʰ37ᵐ.
Ancient Greek ruins located near Athens, Greece
Both marathons understandably keep to their side of history, with branding at the forefront!
Whether it’s fact or fiction that one Mr Pheidippides ran a marathon to warn Athens of its war brethren’s victory, there is no doubt that this herculean-esque story encapsulates a heroic fable which makes anyone want to ponder what it must be like to run through an ancient landscape with a crucial message of victory over the enemy.
Next time you cross the finishing line of your local park run remember the words…Nenikēkamen!