Many runners are familiar with the story surrounding the origins of the modern marathon. As the well-worn legend goes, after the badly outnumbered Greeks somehow managed to drive back the Persians who had invaded the coastal plain of Marathon, an Athenian messenger named Pheidippides was dispatched from the battlefield to Athens to deliver the news of Greek victory. After running about 25 miles to the Acropolis, he burst into the chambers and gallantly hailed his countrymen with “Nike! Nike! Nenikekiam” (“Victory! Victory! Rejoice, we conquer!”). And then he promptly collapsed from exhaustion and died. Turns out, however, the story is bigger than that. Much bigger.
The whole idea of recreating an ancient voyage was fantastic to me. Looking for an excuse to visit the country of my ancestors, I signed up for the little-known Spartathlon in 2014, an ultramarathon from Athens to Sparta that roughly follows the path of the real Pheidippides. It felt like the right way to tell his story—the actual story of the marathon. Here’s what I discovered:
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Pheidippides was not a citizen athlete, but a hemerodromos: one of the men in the Greek military known as day-long runners. What they did was considered beyond competition, more akin to something sacred. Much is written about the training and preparation of Olympic athletes, and quite detailed accounts of the early Greek Games exist. Comparatively little is recorded of the mysterious hemerodromoi other than that they covered incredible distances on foot, over rocky and mountainous terrain, forgoing sleep if need be in carrying out their duties as messengers.
Like Pheidippides, I run long distances—ultra-marathons. Years ago, on my 30th birthday, I ran 30 miles, completing a celebratory mile for each one of my unfathomable years of existence. That night forever altered the course of my life. I wanted to go farther, to try 50-mile races even. And so I did. Training and life became inseparable, one and the same, intimately intertwined. Running these long distances was liberating. I felt a closeness to Pheidippides and I resolved to learn what really took place out there on the hillsides of ancient Greece.
The story that everyone is familiar with is that of Pheidippides running from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce Greek victory, a distance of about 25 miles. But first he ran from Athens to Sparta, to gather Spartan troops to help the Athenians in combat against the Persians. The distance was much more than a single marathon, more like six marathons stacked one upon the other, some 150 miles.
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At the modern-day Spartathlon, I’d supposedly retrace those steps. It is a demanding race with aggressive cutoff times. Runners must reach an ancient wall at Hellas Can factory, in Corinth—50.33 miles—within nine hours and 30 minutes or face elimination. For comparison, many 50-mile ultramarathons have cutoff times of 13 or 14 hours to complete the race in its entirety.
At the start, I was surrounded by 350 warriors huddled in the predawn mist at the foot of the Acropolis of Athens. For me the quest was deeply personal. I’d been waiting a lifetime to be standing in this place. I would finally run alongside my ancient brother, Pheidippides, albeit two and a half millennia in his wake. The starting gun went off, and away we went, into the streets crowded with morning traffic. Policemen were stationed at most of the main intersections to stop vehicles, but after crossing streets we runners had to run on the sidewalks, avoiding stray dogs, trash cans, and meandering pedestrians.
Ancient Greek athletes were known to eat figs and other fruits, olives, dried meats, and a particular concoction composed of ground sesame seeds and honey mixed into a paste (now called pasteli). Hemerodromoi also consumed handfuls of a small fruit known as hippophae rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn), thought to enhance endurance and stamina. This is how Pheidippides likely fueled during his run, and how I ran the race, too.
Every few miles in the Spartathlon, there were aid stations overflowing with modern athletic foods, but no figs, olives, pasteli, or cured meat were to be had. I was supplied along the way by my crew, but by the time I picked up a bag of food in Corinth (about 50 miles in), the once delectable pasteli now tasted like maple syrup mixed with talcum powder, chalky and repulsively sweet, and I could no longer tolerate the stuff like I had during my training runs. I tried gnawing on a piece of cured meat, but it was rubbery and the gristle got stuck between my teeth. I had several figs, which seemed to sit best in my stomach. About 50 miles later, after climbing Mount Parthenion and plummeting some 1,200 feet from the summit, I was eventually deposited in the remote outpost of Sangas, where my crew was waiting for me, asking me if I could eat. I shook my head no, too exhausted to answer. I kept running.
Dawn is the bewitching hour during an all-night run. Running through the Arcadian foothills, I fought to stay awake. Slowly, ever so gradually, my eyelids drooped downward. Still, I pressed on. When I reopened my eyes, I found myself in the middle of the road. What the heck? I thought. Then it happened again, and I realized I was sleep running. Given ancient Greek record, Pheidippides would have likely passed through this very same section of Arcadia in the early morning hours, just as I was doing then. To think that an ancient hemerodromos was running here 2,500 years ago fascinated me, and knowing that this was the land of my ancestors made the experience even more visceral. Just as I was fully realizing the depth of my connection to this place, a large diesel truck came barreling down the highway straight for me, thrusting me back into the present-day reality of the modern Spartathlon. It was a stark reminder that while some things hadn’t changed since ancient times, other things had. I was gaining toward Tegea, which would mean about 30 more miles to go.
Pheidippides ran the distance in two days. I reached the end in 34:45:27. There is no finish line to cross, no mat to step over or tape to break; instead you conclude the journey by touching the feet of the towering bronze statue of King Leonidas in the center of town. The mayor of Sparta places an olive leaf wreath upon the head of each finisher and you are handed a golden goblet of water to drink from the Evrotas River, similar to how Olympian winners were honored in ancient times. Exhausted as he must have been from the journey, Pheidippides’s job was not complete. He needed to present a compelling case for why the Spartans should join the Athenians in battle. “Men of Sparta,” he reportedly said, “the Athenians beseech you to hasten to their aide, and not allow that state, which is the most ancient in all of Greece, to be enslaved by the barbarians.”
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Apparently his plea was convincing, for it worked. But the moon wasn’t full, and religious law forbade the Spartans to battle until it was, which wouldn’t be for another six days’ time. Pheidippides had to let his people know about the delay. So he did the unthinkable. After a brief catnap and some food, he awoke before sunrise and set out on the return trip—about 150 miles back to Athens. With his constitution fairly compromised, Pheidippides found himself trudging back over Mount Parthenion, when suddenly he had a vision of the god Pan standing before him. With the face of a human but the body and horns of a goat, Pan was an unsettling figure to behold. According to the historian Herodotus, Pan explained that while he was loyal to the Athenians, they must worship him properly in order to preserve the alliance. Pan had great powers that could unravel the enemy, and he would bestow the Athenians with these abilities, but only if they were to revere him as they should.
Again, Pheidippides made the trip in about two days’ time. After he reached Athens, the city deployed 10,000 adult male Athenian citizens to Marathon to fend off 60,000 Persians. Despite being outnumbered, the Greeks were in an advantageous battle position, so General Miltiades, the leader of the Athenian troops, had the men hunker down to await the arrival of the Spartans. But the next day Miltiades got intelligence that the Persians had sent their cavalry back to their ships and were planning to split into two groups and surround the Greeks. The most prudent strategy would be to retreat to Athens to defend the city and wait for the Spartans to join the fight. But, thanks to Pheidippides, Miltiades knew the Spartans wouldn’t come soon enough, and the Athenians would be hung out to dry. He decided that the Athenians would wake early the next morning and attack the current Persian position while their horsemen were absent and before they had time to carry out their plan.
If Pheidippides had failed in his 300-mile ultramarathon, what has been called the most critical battle in history might have been lost. Thus was the battle ultimately waged and won at Marathon. Eventually, the Spartans arrived in Athens and learned of the outcome. Before they got there, a messenger—but not Pheidippides, according to scholars—had run 25 miles to deliver the good news. So why do we run 26.2? Why are we not running some 300 miles, the distance Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta and back? Why highlight the shorter run when a much greater feat occurred? Perhaps because in that final jaunt from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens, the mystic messenger supposedly died at the conclusion. To the ancient Greeks, nothing could be nobler than dying after performing a heroic deed for one’s country.
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Adapted with permission from The Road to Sparta, by Dean Karnazes. Published by Rodale.
Hear a conversation with David Willey and Dean Karnazes on “The RW Show.” Available on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcast platforms.
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