Marathon

The history of Marathon race and Marathon war

Conception of marathon race: By marathon, we usually consider a long-distance road race. It is an important event of Olympic. However, the interesting thing is, in ancient Olympic there was no such event called marathon. It is actually a name of a town of Greece. Therefore, the question arises how it added as an event of Olympic. Actually, as an instance of prestige and respect towards spectacular legend named Pheidippides modern Olympic introduced marathon race The idea of marathon in Olympic was first given by a philologist named Michel Breal.On April 10, 1996 during the final day of Olympic the first marathon race was started. The length of the first marathon race was 40 kilometers (25 miles) which started from Marathon and ended to Athens. Seventeen competitors from five nations were competed in the race. The winner of the first marathon race was a Greek named Spyridon Louis. He finished the race in 2:58:50.

The history of Pheidippides and Marathon war: According to a fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, Pheidippides was born in 530 BC in Athens. He was an Athenian herald (messenger).

History says that on the forth and early fifth century Persian King Darius I was dominating over Asia Minor including the most of the part of southwest Asia and some Parts of Southeastern Europe called Ionia (Turkey at present). However, the Ionian people realized that the Persian rule is oppressive and not favorable towards then. Therefore, the Ionian Greek along the Aegean Sea revolt against Persian emperor with the assistance of Athenian Greek of eastern Greece. Persian emperor subdued the Ionian revolt strictly in 492 BC and sent army to punish Athenian for their assistance to Ionian Greeks.

As a part of conquering Greece, in 490 BC (Date: August or September) a large number of well-armed Persian Army with 25,000 soldier led by Datis and Artapherne landed on Marathon, which was 26 miles north of Athens. The Athenian generals heard the news and send Pheidippides in Sparta for help. Pheidippides ran about 140 miles and reached here next day but the Spartan allies refused them to help until full moon because of religious laws and Pheidippides came back running again. While the Persian armies were proceeding to Athens, The Athenian and Plataea armies led by Miltiades the Younger and Callimachus with 10,000 citizen-soldiers including 1,000 well-armed soldiers (including Pheidippides) attacked them in small village of Marathon. It was all of a sudden attack and the Persian armies were not ready for it.


The both armies fought during the whole day and the end of the day 6400 Persian soldiers died while only 192 Athenians had been killed. The other surviving Persian Armies run away from battle and headed to Athens prepare for sudden attack before Greek armies re-assemble. To carry the news of victory and warn Athens about the imminent attack by the Persian, Athenian general again ordered Pheidippides to run to Athens (26 miles). However, Pheidippides was tired of recent run to Sparta and having fought fought the whole morning in heavy armor but he was not afraid to sacrifice himself for his nation. He again run to Athens and reached here probably in 3 hours. After this inhuman labour when Pheidippides reach Athens whatever he could say was only a word 'Nenikekamen' (We are victorious) or 'Niki' (Victory). After that he lied on the ground and died shortly thereafter for exhaustion.