Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 158, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1915 — NOT AN EXTRAORDINARY FEAT [ARTICLE]

NOT AN EXTRAORDINARY FEAT

“Marathon Run” Has Been Duplicated Many Times by Sprinters With No Great Claim to Fame. Historians differ by two days in relation to the date of the battle of Marathon, but the weight of opinion has been in favor of May 30, 490 years before the beginning of the Christian era. It was a small town, but like many of the small towns of great wars, it became famous through all time in history as the turning point for the forces of the Athenians. Marathon is about twenty-eight miles northeast of Athens, the modern town being in the midst of a beautiful plain. Circuitous roads lead around spurs of Mounts Pentelicus and Hymettus, famous in Grecian history and poetry. On this date Miltiades, the great leader of the time of the Greeks, met, as the tale is told, 100,000 Persians with only 10,000 Greeks. The story of the battle is one of the most thrilling in all history. The Greeks drove the Persians out of that part of the country. In recent years the battle has been remembered by rather absurd “Marathon races,” the reason for them being the story of a runner who sped those 28 miles without stop for a rest to bring tffi| story to Athena of the wonderful victory of the little army of Miltiades, which changed the whole face of affairs between the contending Greeks and Persians. The story had been disputed of the feat of this runner, but it was challenged by athletes in various parts of America as being no great feat, as Lord Byron proved that the story of Leander swimming the Hellespont was no unusual accomplishment for any good swimmer. Many an American young man has duplicated the Marathon race ih various parts of thia country, proving that the Greek of about 2,500 years ago, who brought to Athens the news of the victory of Miltiades, was merely an ordinary sprinter.