Download Source E: Robert Browning `Pheidippides` by

Sources on Pheidippides and the Marathon
Source A: Useless Facts
http://www.distant.ca/UselessFacts/fact.asp?ID=313
The Origin Of The Marathon
Historical Events
The origin of the marathon begins in 490 BC, when the king of Persia sent a fleet of
25,000 soldiers to punish the Athenians for revolting. The troops landed in the
coastal town of Marathon, where they were met by 10,000 armed Athenians.
The Athenians successfully battled the Persians in Marathon, but some of the Persian
soldiers set sail for Athens. The Athenians sent a runner (in some accounts a
professional runner named Pheidippides) back to Athens to warn of the attack.
On August 12th, 490 BC the messenger ran the 42 kilometre distance without
stopping. He would have been subjected to temperatures as high as 39 degrees
Celsius and, just after he arrived in Athens with the news, he died (likely from heat
stroke).
What we now know as the marathon commemorates the heroic run from Marathon
to Athens.
Posted: 2004-08-10 3:59:12 PM
This fact has been viewed 29335 times.
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Distant Worlds' Useless Facts is a rather pointless web site designed to provide you
will all the pointless trivia, pop culture references and points of interest(?) that you
can handle. Over time this database will be filled with facts figures and records of all
kinds as I find them.
Any facts boasting the biggest/smallest/oldest etc. of anything are based on the
record as it stands at the time the fact was posted. Events subsequent to the posting
of any record may result in a new record that may or may not be listed on this site….
James Whitaker, B.Sc.
Source B: Herodotus
The Histories of Herodotus (circa 440 BC)
Book VI, Chapters 105, 106
Translated by George Rawlinson (1960)
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/herodotus/h4/
And first, before they left the city, the generals sent off to Sparta a herald, one
Pheidippides, who was by birth an Athenian, and by profession and practice a trained
runner. This man, according to the account which he gave to the Athenians on his
return, when he was near Mount Parthenium, above Tegea, fell in with the god Pan,
who called him by his name, and bade him ask the Athenians “wherefore they
neglected him so entirely, when he was kindly disposed towards them, and had often
helped them in times past, and would do so again in time to come?” The Athenians,
entirely believing in the truth of this report, as soon as their affairs were once more in
good order, set up a temple to Pan under the Acropolis, and, in return for the
message which I have recorded, established in his honour yearly sacrifices and a
torch-race.
On the occasion of which we speak when Pheidippides was sent by the Athenian
generals, and, according to his own account, saw Pan on his journey, he reached
Sparta on the very next day after quitting the city of Athens — Upon his arrival he
went before the rulers, and said to them:—
“Men of Lacedaemon, the Athenians beseech you to hasten to their aid, and not allow
that state, which is the most ancient in all Greece, to be enslaved by the barbarians.
Eretria, look you, is already carried away captive; and Greece weakened by the loss of
no
mean
city.”
Thus did Pheidippides deliver the message committed to him. And the Spartans
wished to help the Athenians, but were unable to give them any present succour, as
they did not like to break their established law. It was then the ninth day of the first
decade; and they could not march out of Sparta on the ninth, when the moon had not
reached the full. So they waited for the full of the moon.
The Persians accordingly sailed round Sunium. But the Athenians with all possible
speed marched away to the defence of their city, and succeeded in reaching Athens
before the appearance of the barbarians: and as their camp at Marathon had been
pitched in a precinct of Hercules, so now they encamped in another precinct of the
same god at Cynosarges. The barbarian fleet arrived, and lay to off Phalerum, which
was at that time the haven of Athens; but after resting awhile upon their oars, they
departed and sailed away to Asia.
~~~~~~
Herodotus ( /hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) was an ancient
Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey)
and lived in the fifth century BC (c.484 – 425 BC). He has been called the "Father of
History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically,
test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and
vivid narrative.[1] The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to
have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or ἱστορία historía, a word that passed
into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), being an investigation of
the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and
ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed
he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal
history.
~~~~
Source C: Plutarch
De gloria Atheniensium (On the Glory of Athens)
by Plutarch (c. 46 – 120 AD)
as published in Vol. IV
of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1936
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/De_gloria
_Atheniensium*.html
Again, the news of the battle of Marathon Thersippus of Eroeadae brought back, as
Heracleides Ponticus relates; but most historians declare that it was Eucles who ran
in full armour, hot from the battle, and, bursting in at the doors of the first men of
the State, could only say, "Hail! we are victorious!"15 p505and straightway expired.
Yet this man came as a self-sent messenger regarding a battle in which he himself
had fought; Dbut suppose that some goatherd or shepherd upon a hill or a height had
been a distant spectator of the contest and had looked down upon that great event,
too great for any tongue to tell, and had come to the city as a messenger, a man who
had not felt a wound nor shed a drop of blood, and yet had insisted that he have such
honours as Cynegeirus received, or Callimachus, or Polyzelus, because, forsooth, he
had reported their deeds of valour, their wounds and death; would he not have been
thought of surpassing impudence?
~~~~
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius
Plutarchus, c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle
Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia.[2] He was born to a
prominent family in Chaeronea, Boeotia, a town about twenty miles east of Delphi.
~~~~
Source D: Lucian
A Slip of the Tongue in Salutation
Lucian (c. 125 – 180 AD)
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lucian/works/chapter18.html
The modern use of the word dates back to Philippides the dispatch-runner. Bringing
the news of 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 of Samosata (c. AD 125 – after AD 180) was a rhetorician[1] and satirist
who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.
Although he wrote solely in Greek, he was ethnically Assyrian.[2][3][4]
~~~~~
Source E: Robert Browning
‘Pheidippides’ by Robert Browning (1879)
http://www.online-literature.com/robert-browning/shorter-poems/6/
Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:
So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis
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 thro' clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!
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,
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began,
So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute:
"Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.
~~~~
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and
playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made
him one of the foremost Victorian poets.
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