Pheidippides

Pheidippides was a 5th-century-BC Athenian courier whose long-distance runs before and after the Battle of Marathon became the stuff of contested legend. Herodotus, the earliest source, recorded only that Pheidippides ran roughly 240 kilometers from Athens to Sparta and back to seek help against the invading Persians; he said nothing about the runner fighting in the battle or dying. Centuries later, the satirist Lucian introduced a different version: a shorter Marathon-to-Athens sprint to deliver news of victory, ending in Pheidippides's immediate death — a detail scholars consider a romantic…