Athletics of To-Day 1929

CHAPTER VIII THE MARATHON RACE THE Marathon Race, now standardised at 26 miles 385 yards, was instituted at the revival of the Olympic Games at Athens in r8g6 to commemorate the epic endurance of a Greek soldier, Pheidippides, who in 490 B.C. ran from Marathon to Athens, a distance of 22 miles 1,470 yards, to bring news of his country– men's victory over the Persian hordes under Darius who had sought to invade Greece. But that, however, does not tell the full tale of his prowess. When the news reached the Athenian elders that Darius, the Mede, was crossing the JEgean Sea to conquer the Greek states they dispatched Pheidippides, a noted Olympic champion, to summon aid from the partans. That journey took him two days and two nights, and in its course he climbed mountains and swam rivers. The Spartans, however, refused to set out until the moon should be at the full, and so Pheidippides journeyed back. Meanwhile the Persians had landed, and he reached the capital only soon enough to deliver his message and take up his heavy shield and long spear, before setting out with the Grecian army which was marching to meet the invaders at Marathon. Ph idippid s bore his part in the battle, and immediat ly it was over and victory assured he cast aside his arms and set out to run the twenty– two odd miles to the capital with the news. At the outskirts of Athens he was met by the elders and gasping out the words that mean (I Rejoice, we conquer!" he fell dead at their feet. By a curiously appropriate chance the man who won the first Marathon Race of modern times was a Greek peasant named Loues, and of course the delight of his Greek com– rrs