Latest / The History of Greece: Philosophy, Empire, and Endless Reinvention — Fexingo History / Pheidippides and the Battle of Marathon: Fact vs Legend
Transcript
- Lucas: So if anyone knows the story of the Battle of Marathon, they probably know the runner. The guy who supposedly ran 26 miles from Marathon to Athens, shouted 'Nike!' — victory — and dropped dead on the spot. Luna: Right. Pheidippides. I've heard that story a hundred times. But I've also heard it might not be true. Lucas: It's one of those stories that's become so embedded in modern culture — especially with the marathon race — that people assume it's gospel. But the earliest source we have, Herodotus, tells a very different story. He mentions a runner named Pheidippides — though he spells it 'Philippides' in some manuscripts — but his run isn't from Marathon to Athens. It's a 280-mile round trip from Athens to Sparta to ask for help before the battle. Luna: Wait — so Pheidippides ran to Sparta? That's like 140 miles each way. Lucas: Exactly. Herodotus says he made it in two days. That's an incredible feat — covering rugged terrain in summer heat. And when he got to Sparta, he asked the Spartans to send troops to help the Athenians face the Persian army at Marathon. But the Spartans said they couldn't come immediately because it was the festival of the Carneia — a religious period when they couldn't march. So Pheidippides had to run all the way back to Athens with that news. Luna: So the original run was much longer. How did the shorter version start? Lucas: That's where things get murky. The first surviving source that mentions a runner from Marathon to Athens after the battle is the Greek historian Plutarch, writing about 500 years later. But Plutarch says the runner was a different person — not Pheidippides, but a man named either Thersippus or Eucles. And he doesn't say he dropped dead. He just says he arrived, said 'Nike', and collapsed. The first time anyone says Pheidippides made the run from Marathon is Lucian, a satirist writing another 100 years after Plutarch — in the second century AD. Luna: So the whole 'he ran 26 miles and died' story is from a satirist? That's wild. Lucas: It gets better. Lucian's account is in a short comic piece called 'A Slip of the Tongue in Greeting' — not exactly a history. He's not trying to be accurate. He's using the runner story as an ironic illustration. So here we have a legend built on a throwaway line from a satirist, mixed with an earlier story about a different run, all attached to a name that Herodotus gave us for a completely different journey. Luna: But the marathon race today is 26.2 miles. That distance came from somewhere. Lucas: Yes, and that distance was actually set for the 1908 London Olympics. The race was originally supposed to be about 25 miles, but the course was adjusted so the finish line would be in front of the royal family's viewing box. 26 miles, plus an extra 385 yards. The modern marathon distance became standardised from that. So the whole thing — the length, the runner, the fatal collapse — is a chain of later inventions, each building on the last. Luna: It's funny how a story can take on a life of its own. We've been talking all these episodes about how history gets shaped. Lucas: Exactly. And if you're someone who listens to shows like this — carefully separating what we know from what we think we know — you're part of a small group. Most people never question the Pheidippides story. And that's one reason listener support matters for what we do. This podcast is ad-free and independent, and it stays that way because of people who chip in at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Even a small contribution helps us keep digging into these questions. Luna: Yeah, it's a way to say 'I value this kind of careful history.' I think it's worth it. Lucas: So back to Marathon. What actually happened at the battle itself? The Persians under King Darius I had invaded Greece to punish Athens and Eretria for supporting the Ionian Revolt. They'd captured Eretria and enslaved its people. Then they landed at Marathon, about 26 miles northeast of Athens, with a massive army — probably around 25,000 men, though ancient sources claim much larger numbers. Luna: And the Athenians were heavily outnumbered. Lucas: They were. The Athenian force was about 10,000 hoplites, plus about 1,000 Plataeans. The Athenian commander was Callimachus, the polemarch — the war archon. But there were ten generals, including Miltiades, who argued for attacking immediately rather than waiting for the Spartans. Miltiades convinced Callimachus, and on the day of battle, the Athenians charged the Persian lines at a run — which was unusual. Hoplites typically marched slowly in formation. But they ran, possibly to avoid being hit by Persian arrows, and the shock of that charge broke the Persian center. Luna: I've read that the Athenian wings crushed the Persians, but their center was pushed back. Lucas: Exactly. Miltiades deliberately weakened his center and strengthened the wings. The Persian center drove the Athenians back, but the wings closed in from both sides, creating a double envelopment — an early example of that tactic. The Persians fled to their ships, and the Athenians captured seven of them. The Persian dead were said to be 6,400; the Athenians lost only 192, including Callimachus. It was a stunning victory, and it proved that the Persians could be beaten. Luna: And that's what Pheidippides — or whoever — ran to announce. Lucas: If anyone ran to announce it. But the real story, the one we can trace, is still remarkable. A runner covered 280 miles in two days to try to get help. And when that help didn't come, the Athenians fought anyway — and won. That's the foundation of the Marathon legend, even if the details got scrambled over the centuries. Luna: So when did the marathon race first appear? Lucas: The first organized marathon race was at the 1896 Athens Olympics. A French philologist named Michel Bréal proposed it, inspired by the Pheidippides story as it was then understood. The distance was about 40 kilometers — roughly 25 miles — from Marathon to Athens. The winner was a Greek water carrier named Spyridon Louis, who became a national hero. That race revived the legend, and by 1908 the distance was fixed at 26.2 miles. So the modern marathon is really a 19th-century invention, but it's anchored to a kernel of truth from 490 BC. Luna: And the name Pheidippides — is that actually what he was called? Lucas: Herodotus writes the name as 'Philippides' in some passages, which might mean 'son of Philip' — a common name. In others it's 'Pheidippides'. Later writers standardised it as Pheidippides. But we don't actually know his real name. What we do know is that the profession existed — these runners were called hêmerodromoi, 'day-runners', who covered long distances as couriers. Pheidippides was one of them, and his run to Sparta is one of the great endurance feats of the ancient world. Luna: It's incredible that we can still look at the sources and untangle the layers. It makes you wonder what other stories we take for granted. Lucas: That's the thing about history — it's not a fixed painting. It's more like a palimpsest, where new stories get written over old ones. But if you dig carefully, you can still see the original text underneath. And that's what we try to do here, episode by episode.