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 invention. Robert Browning's 1879 poem fused both runs into one epic feat, cementing the composite myth. That final, fatal leg became the basis for the modern marathon, while the Athens-Sparta route inspired two ultramarathons: the 246-kilometer Spartathlon and the 490-kilometer Authentic Pheidippides Run.