Pheidippides: The Athenian messenger who inspired the marathon
The story of the Athenian messenger Pheidippides, whose remarkable running achievement inspired the modern marathon, has been told many times – but there has been much confusion and contradiction in the various narratives.
Now, finally, we can tell the complete story, thanks to the recent discovery of a contemporaneous account by a travel writer named Melodius, who was on a working holiday in Athens at the time of the battle of Marathon. Little is known about Melodius, except that he had a pleasing falsetto singing voice, but his account seems indisputable. He set down his observations in the form of an epic poem, which was fashionable in Ancient Greece. It is far from ideal for a modern audience, but at least there is no discernible rhyming.
BOOK THE FIRST AND ONLY
Athens: 490BCE. The Persians set sail with a mighty force to the bay of Marathon, 25 miles northeast of Athens. The Persian king, Darius the Great, had sworn to burn the city to the ground because just being called The Great didn’t really do it for him. Before his army departed, he shot an arrow toward the heavens and called upon Zeus for permission to go to war. The arrow narrowly missed the king of the gods, who had been dozing in a hammock. ‘What the Hades!’ he thundered. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Hades.1 And Zeus was unhappy, which did not bode well for Darius.
The Athenian general, Miltiades, knew that he needed support if his forces were to prevail, so he called for his fastest messenger…
THE TASK
Miltiades, eyes afire, called out: ‘Bring to me my hemerodrome!’
A nervous junior officer took a guess and handed him some
medicinal cream, which outraged the fearsome general:
‘No! My day runner! My courier. Bring to me Pheidippides, the older
but still nippy one.’ ‘I am already here, my glorious general,’ said Pheidippides,
who was indeed fleet of foot, if prone to sycophancy.
The general, his beard trembling, said he had an important task
for his day runner and Pheidippides was filled with delight and fancy:
‘We will march on Marathon and I will fight
valiantly and many Persians will fall to my sword, when
I get a sword, and I will run into battle calling “For the glory
of Greece!” And “Greece forever!” And “Greece is the word!”’
Miltiades frowned:
‘I like the first two, but I don’t get the last one.’
‘But my general, it’s got a groove,
it’s got a meaning.’2
The general was beginning to reconsider, but time was
not, he thought, on his side, though he could not be sure,
as it was cloudy, so the sundial was not working.
‘Pheidippides, you must run to Sparta to get
reinforcements. We are but 10,000 and the Persians are
more than 25,000, and very upset with us over that thing in Ionia.’3
And Pheidippides took his turn to frown, though less impressively,
for he knew his place.
‘Don’t get me wrong, oh splendid General, but Sparta is
close to 150 miles away. Could I have a horse?’
Miltiades looked at his courier with astonishment.
‘Are you not a runner?’
‘Yes, indeed, but mostly middle distance, and 150 miles is…’
Miltiades reached for his sword, but he had been in a hurry that morning
and left it with his other tunic. He could see it now, lying on a chair in his chamber.
‘I cannot spare a horse and this far is more dramatic. You will run
to our reliably bloodthirsty Spartan comrades and tell them to gather an army and
march to Marathon. Then you must immediately return to Athens with the good news,
and advance with us to the battleground, where we will give those
Persian thugs a good beating. Am I understood?’
The prudent courier nodded, though he did not rate his chances.
‘Then go, go tell the Spartans. The fate of Athens – and perhaps the future of
western civilisation – is in your hands. And feet.’
And Pheidippides felt this was laying it on a bit thick but
kept his counsel and, thus, his head.
THE RUN
As proud Pheidippides was about to take the first steps
on this immense journey, upon which all depended,
Nike,4 goddess of victory, appeared before him.
‘I see you begin the long journey to Sparta, across difficult terrain.’
‘Wise and winged goddess, shall you accompany me?’ asked Pheidippides,
thinking perhaps she would carry him. Plus he fancied his chances.
‘No, but I have made for you these shoes. They shall offer
excellent traction and prevent the ingress of
small but troublesome pebbles.’
But Pheidippides did not like the colourway,
so though he took the shoes and thanked the goddess,
he left them in the box and began his journey barefoot, taking
the sacred road to Eleusis and on to Megara and Corinth.
He avoided the territory of Argos, which was not
allied with Athens and was always selling something.
Indefatigable and fearless, he continued into mountainous territory,
until he found himself on Mount Parthenion, where he spied
a most curious creature sitting atop a boulder. ‘What manner of beast
are you? Are you a goat man?’ he asked.
The creature rose to this hooves, snorting with indignation:
‘I am the god Pan and I am sick of you mortals making
fun of my appearance and not worshipping me.’
And Pheidippides, a stranger to circumspection, said:
‘My apologies. I didn’t mean to get your goat.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Nothing, powerful and fearless Pan, I am tired and I babble.
Tell me, am I on the road to Sparta?’
Pan nodded his great horned head. ‘You are preparing to fight the Persians.
Perhaps if you promise to worship me more enthusiastically, I will join you on
the field of battle and cause the enemy to… panic, if you get my meaning.’
‘I don’t, but we shall worship you day and night and build
anatomically flattering statues, for we are all Pan’s people,’ said Pheidippides quickly.
Pan smiled and looked at the courier with hope.
‘Before you depart, would you like to hear me play the pipes?’
But Pheidippides was in a hurry and would have said he was
even if I were not so.
‘I fear I must away and reach Sparta before it is too late.’
Pan sat back on his hairy haunches.
‘Nobody wants to hear Pan’s pipes,’ he said, pawing the ground.
Pheidippides bade him farewell and continued on his way.
As he passed, Pan called out:
‘Why did they not furnish you with a horse?’
‘This is more dramatic,’ called the doughty day runner.
‘More stupid,’ muttered the god and tried to cheer himself
up with a gay tune. It did not work. It never worked.
By sunset of the second day, Pheidippides had reached Sparta.
He stood in the middle of the town square and called out:
‘I have come from Athens on foot to get your support for our
impending battle with the Persians, who approach Marathon
even as I speak this long sentence. Will you join us? What am I saying?
You people love fighting!’
But the Spartans were in the middle of the nine-day religious festival
of Carneia, during which they were forbidden to fight or bare arms,
which explained the long sleeves.
‘Look,’ said a high priest, ‘costumes, garlands and here,
the ram we will sacrifice later – someone stop that ram –
so, alas, we cannot join you.’ Pheidippides appealed to the
crowd with his eyes, but the Spartans looked down
at the ground or searched for something in their
pockets, which had recently been invented.
‘How about this,’ continued the high priest, ‘we will join you
after our festival, which ends in four days. Will that do?’
But Pheidippides said it would not and that he must
immediately run back to Athens with the bad news.
‘I don’t suppose I could have a horse?’
And he massaged the tendon on the back of his heel,
which did not have a name. But the high priest told him:
‘We are also forbidden from loaning horses during
the festival. No one knows why. Anyway, this is more dramatic.’
Though tired and sore, Pheidippides ran back to Athens, taking a different
route so he did not have to meet Pan again. Weary, unsteady on his legs,
and ripe as a Gaul cheese, he gave the bad news to Miltiades.
‘Oh right,’ said the general, ‘I’d forgotten about that. It’s a big deal in Sparta.
Men, we must march to Marathon alone!’
‘I will catch you up,’ wheezed his intrepid runner.
‘Nonsense, you will march with us now, for we need every able fighter.
It is but 25 miles, thereabouts. Perhaps a wash first.’
And Miltiades laid a hand on the shoulder of the enfeebled man,
who fell to the ground under the weight.
‘May I have a horse?’
‘Of course not. You are infantry. And this is more dramatic.’
‘Why the need for all this drama?’ asked a bewildered Pheidippides.
‘We invented it!’ said Miltiades. ‘Everyone knows that. Before us, people
would go to the theatre and look at an empty stage for three hours!’
And Pheidippides, who was tired but not stupid, did not think this was the case.
‘Onwards to Marathon!’ roared Miltiades.
‘Victory or death!’ shouted his phalanxes.5
‘Victory is better,’ murmured Pheidippides.
THE BATTLE
Days passed as the Persians and the Athenians sized each
other up from the coastal positions and awaited the best moment
to attack. Finally, with no help from the spineless Spartans, and after
many games of beach volleyball, the wily Athenians outflanked
the Persians, who did not know their king had
been casually firing arrows at the king of the gods, and
they lost many men as they retreated to their ships in
what looked to all like… panic. Some say they saw the god
Pan running about, playing his pipes, which accounts for the terror.
And the Athenians rejoiced, though not Pheidippides, who
lay in a tent in a dreamless sleep, drooling.
‘Pheidippides!’ called Miltiades, ‘I have one more task for you.’
The bone-weary runner stirred. ‘I really should recover for a
few days, my victorious general,’ he pleaded.
‘Ha ha ha!’ barked Miltiades, ‘it as if you have a choice.
Amusing fellow. You will run to Athens and inform the
people that we have been victorious but that the Persians
may be headed their way and we will return soon to defend the city.
Meantime, they should stay home and not answer the door to
any passing armies who say they are only looking for directions. Have you
got all that?’ And bold Pheidippides sighed.
‘You’ll be needing all the horses, I suppose?’
‘Of course not, but what’s another 25 or so miles after your
heroic effort? Why, you’ll be remembered forever. I suspect they
will even name a race after you: “Let us run a Pheidippides,”
people will say to each other. It’s a mouthful but I’m sure it will catch on.’
And Pheidippides did as he was ordered, running through
the fennel fields and on to the city, where he approached
the city magistrates and croaked:
‘We win!’
‘Win what?’ they asked.
‘I mean, Hail, we are the winners,’6 gasped noble Pheidippides,
and he fell to the ground and died.
‘Bit dramatic,’ said one official. ‘Who is he?’
But they did not know his name.
‘We should remember him somehow, though he is but
a lowly and malodorous courier,’ said another. ‘He has come from Marathon,
so in honour of his efforts, we should name an event after him.’
‘A marathon,’ said the first. ‘I like the sound of that.’
Notes
Hades, Zeus and Poseidon were brother gods. Together they ran the cosmos: Zeus ruled the skies, Poseidon had dominion over the seas and Hades was lord of the grimy underworld, which he never failed to passive-aggressively note at family dinners: ‘The light is so beautiful up here, Zeus,’ he’d say, or, ‘Hey, Poseidon, where did you get this delicious fish?’
It has been suggested that Melodious also wrote musicals.
The Ionian revolt against Persian rule had begun when the Athenians sent word that Darius had been badmouthing their architecture.
Once incurred the displeasure of Zeus because she did not make a running shoe in size a million.
Hard to pronounce.
Supposed actual final words. He should have given them some thought.
You Might Also Like
