Talk:Pheidippides

Pheidippides pictures
I added two pictures of Pheidippides to better the article I hope it's ok by everyone or most.Hammer of the Gods27 (talk) 01:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Too much analysis
There is way too much analysis and too many uncited "facts" at the end of this article. The only source is the quote from The Histories, and the rest might as well be something the author just pulled out of nowhere. It looks like a school paper trying to interpret events instead of simply presenting them. An encyclopedia is simply supposed to put forth the facts, not try to interpret them.DaBears34 03:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Yet another interpretation
A Swedish researcher in the field of sports history described the story something like this (I do not remember the details, and unfortunately I do not have a reference): The Greek used professional runners, because they are faster over long distances, as horses quickly tire. In fact, the Africans know that one can hunt Gazelle by having food and water enough for a few days with you, then selecting an animal, pursuing it until it gets too tired to run away. So when the Persians were spotted at Marathon, probably spotted at sea, a runner was sent to Athens in order to seek help, and the Athenians sent the runner to Sparta. The Spartans, however, found an excuse to not help immediately, but in a few days time, a message which the runner took back to Athens. Then the Athenians won the battle at Marathon, and when the Spartans arrived very much too late for the battle, just as they had planned, they lauded the Athenians for a good job. It is wholly unlikely a professional runner would die from running such a short distance as that between Marathon and Athens.

Contradictions
The article currently seems to kind of argue with itself over whether a horse would have been expected to be used... AnonMoos (talk) 13:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Distance Contradictions
At the start of the article, it says Pheidippides ran "240km" but at the end, it talks about Pheidippides "semi-historical run through 250km of Greek countryside". Which one is the real distance? I would change it if other sites didn't contradict each other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.218.66.118 (talk) 08:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Times?
How long did it take him to run the 26 miles? --Mr. Mario (talk) 05:17, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Of Horses and Men
Without being an authority on the subject, I believe that the sentence "the Athenians would have probably sent the messenger on horseback" should be removed, as it lacks proper quotation; this idea most probably comes from the certain passage's author's logical thinking and only. It should be researched whether a sole horse can run that distance. Let's not forget that horseback messenger services like the one the Persian Empire had, or like the Pony Express et al., relied on frequent stations, where the messenger switched horses. Such stations did NOT exist in this case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.67.4.152 (talk) 20:47, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Serious Confusion about Greek Geography
There is at least one serious point of geographical confusion in the article as it now stands regarding the possible route Pheidippides is supposed to have run in the first Marathon. Right now the article "explains" the story as follows:


 * The traditional story relates that Pheidippides (530 BC–490 BC), an Athenian herald, was sent to Sparta to request help when the Persians landed at Marathon, Greece. He ran 240 km (150 miles) in two days. He then ran the 40 km (25 miles) from the battlefield near Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia in the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) with the word "Νενικήκαμεν" (Nenikékamen, "We have won") and collapsed and died on the spot from exhaustion.

This is horribly confusing because unless Pheidippides began in Sparta, he could not have travelled from Sparta to Marathon to Athens, as the above passage implies, without running far more than the total 280km as claimed; and yet logically (and fairly obviously) he must have begun at either Athens or Marathon, for otherwise he could not have had knowledge of the invasion and could not have been sent to request help from the Spartans. So: Where did Pheidippides begin the longer of his two runs, in Athens or Marathon? And in either case, once he arrived at Sparta, how did he make his way back east to Marathon in order to learn of the victory and then subsequently to begin his fabled 40km victory run back to Athens without first running another ~200km from Sparta to Marathon? --198.96.2.93 (talk) 17:33, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Spartathon vs Marathon Confusion
The article jumps back and forth between the two different events as though they were the same. The first event (Spartathon) being the longer run to ask Sparta for help before the battle, and the second event (Marathon) being the run to inform Athens of their victory after the battle. For example, the article talks about the Marathon event, then cites "the relevant passage" from Herodotus but it's the wrong passage. The cited passage is relevant to the Spartathon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.169.99.97 (talk) 20:09, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Overhaul
There are several problems with this article, not least among which is that it is internally contradictory and poorly written. I'm prepared to significantly overhaul it (not a small task!), and just wanted to leave this here to notify other editors. Euphiletos (talk) 23:31, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Introduction
The argument that Pheidippides' real name was Philippides is not a new one. (And the argument makes sense, and Lucian calls him Philippides). The reference to Nick Sekunda's book seems to have been put in originally to validate the "Phidippides" spelling, which is just another transliteration of Φειδιππίδης and doesn't exactly need sourcing, and not to bolster the argument for saying Philippides is "more correct" (which someone made recently without changing the original reference). Unless something's been discovered recently, the best Herodotus manuscripts use "Pheidippides" and Plutarch, from the best I can tell, never mentions him at all. Let's keep both common variants in the lead without speculating about which one is "more correct." PhainetaiMoi (talk) 05:04, 2 June 2017 (UTC)