Editing Pheidippides (section)

===Sources===
====Herodotus====
[[File:Soldat Marathon Cortot Louvre LP243.jpg|thumb|''The Soldier of Marathon Announcing the Victory'' (1834) by [[Jean-Pierre Cortot]]; [[Louvre]], Paris]]

The Greek historian [[Herodotus]] was the first person to write about an Athenian runner named Pheidippides participating in the [[First Persian War]]. His account is as follows:<ref name=Herodotus-Guttenberg-105>{{cite book |author=[[Herodotus]] |title=Histories |at=Book&nbsp;VI, 105–106 |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2456/2456-h/book6.htm |via=Gutenberg.org}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|multiline=yes|Before they left the city, the [[Athens (Greece)|Athenian]] generals sent off a message to [[Sparta]]. The messenger was an Athenian named Pheidippides, a professional long-distance runner. According to the account he gave the Athenians on his return, Pheidippides met the [[Pan (god)|god Pan]] on [[Mount Parthenium]], above [[Tegea]]. Pan, he said, called him by name and told him to ask the Athenians why they paid him no attention, in spite of his friendliness towards them and the fact that he had often been useful to them in the past, and would be so again in the future. The Athenians believed Pheidippides's story, and when their affairs were once more in a prosperous state, they built a shrine to Pan under the [[Acropolis of Athens|Acropolis]], and from the time his message was received they held an annual ceremony, with a torch-race and sacrifices, to court his protection.
On the occasion of which I speak – when Pheidippides, that is, was sent on his mission by the Athenian commanders and said that he saw Pan – he reached Sparta the day after he left Athens and delivered his message to the Spartan government. "Men of Sparta" (the message ran), "the Athenians ask you to help them, and not to stand by while the most ancient city of Greece is crushed and subdued by a foreign invader; for even now [[Eretria]] has been enslaved, and Greece is the weaker by the loss of one fine city." The Spartans, though moved by the appeal, and willing to send help to Athens, were unable to send it promptly because they did not wish to break their law. It was the ninth day of the month, and they said they could not take the field until the moon was full. So they waited for the full moon, and meanwhile [[Hippias (tyrant)|Hippias]], the son of [[Peisistratos (Athens)|Pisistratus]], guided the Persians to Marathon.|author=Herodotus<ref name=Herodotus-Guttenberg-105/>}}

According to Miller (2006), Herodotus, only 30–40 years removed from the events in question, based his account on eyewitnesses,<ref name="Mill's">{{cite book |last=Miller |first=Stephen G. |author-link=Stephen G. Miller |date=1 Aug 2006  |title=Ancient Greek Athletics |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0300115296 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Wdh6YGXOxMC&q=Marathon+runner+Philippides+Pheidippides&pg=PA46 |access-date=2012-04-08}}</ref> so it seems altogether likely that Pheidippides was an actual historical figure.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/pheidippides-marathon-runner-battle-athens-persia-sparta/ | title=Pheidippides: Is the ancient Greek marathon runner remembered for the wrong run? }}</ref> However, Miller also asserts that Herodotus did not ever mention a Marathon-to-Athens runner in any of his writings. Whether the story is true or not it has no connection with the Battle of Marathon itself, and Herodotus's silence on the evidently dramatic incident of a herald running from Marathon to Athens suggests that no such event occurred.{{original research inline|date=April 2021}}

====Later embellishments====
The first known written account of a run from Marathon to Athens occurs in the works of the Greek writer [[Plutarch]] (46–120&nbsp;AD), in his essay "On the Glory of Athens". Plutarch attributes the run to a herald called either {{translit|grc|Thersippus}} or {{translit|grc|Eukles}}. [[Lucian]], a century later, credits one "Philippides". It seems likely that in the 500&nbsp;years between Herodotus's time and Plutarch's, the story of Pheidippides had become muddled with that of the Battle of Marathon (in particular with the story of the Athenian forces making the march from Marathon to Athens in order to intercept the Persian ships headed there), and some fanciful writer had invented the story of the run from Marathon to Athens.{{original research inline|date=April 2021}}

The first recorded account showing a courier running from Marathon to Athens to announce victory is from within [[Lucian]]'s prose on the first use of the word "joy" as a greeting in ''A Slip of the Tongue in Greeting'' (2nd century&nbsp;AD).<ref name="Edward Seldon Sears">{{cite book |last=Sears |first=Edward Seldon |year=2001 |title=Running through the Ages |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9780786450770 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vxxOw3FvOgwC&q=Pheidippedes |access-date=2012-04-08}}</ref><ref name="John A. Lucas">{{cite book |last=Lucas |first=John A. |title=A History of the Marathon race 490&nbsp;BC to 1975 |publisher=Pennsylvania State University & Los Angeles 1984 Foundation|quote=Philippides, the one who acted as messenger, is said to have used it first in our sense when he brought the news of victory from Marathon and addressed the magistrates in session when they were anxious how the battle had ended; "Joy to you, we've won" he said, and there and then he died, breathing his last breath with the words "Joy to you".}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Lucian |title=Pro lapsu inter salutandum |url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl2/wl204.htm |translator1=Fowler, F.G. |translator2=Fowler, H. W. |year=1905 |website=Sacred-texts.com |access-date=2013-12-14 |quote=The modern use of the word dates back to Philippides the dispatch-runner. Bringing the news of the victory in Marathon, he found the [[archon]]s seated, in suspense regarding the issue of the battle. 'Joy, we win!' he said, and died upon his message, breathing his last in the word 'joy'&nbsp;...}}</ref>

Most accounts incorrectly attribute Lucian's story to Herodotus, who wrote the history of the [[Persian Wars]] in his ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'' (composed about 440&nbsp;BC). However, Magill and Moose (2003) suggest that the story is likely a "romantic invention". They point out that Lucian is the only classical source with all the elements of the story known in modern culture as the "Marathon story of Pheidippides": a messenger running from the fields of Marathon to announce victory, then dying on completion of his mission.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Magill |first1=Frank Northen |last2=Moose |first2=Christina J. |date=23 Jan 2003 |series=Dictionary of World Biography |title=The Ancient World |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=1579580408 |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wyKaVFZqbdUC&q=Marathon+runner+Philippides+Pheidippides&pg=PA820 |access-date=2012-04-08}}</ref>