The Origin of the Marathon

In 490 BC, as a Persian invasion fleet threatened Athens, the city dispatched its best messenger, a professional day-runner named Philippides. His mission was desperate: run 240 kilometers over rugged mountains and rocky terrain to Sparta to beg for military aid. These runners, called hemerodromoi, were trained for journeys where horses couldn't go. Philippides ran the distance, equivalent to nearly six modern marathons, in less than 48 hours. The historian Herodotus, writing decades later, records that on his journey, Philippides claimed to have met the god Pan on a mountain pass. The god promised to help the Athenians. Philippides arrived in Sparta on the very next day, carrying the fate of his city on his exhausted shoulders.