Dude ran from Athena to Sparti, then back. That’s not down the road.
Only one person said he did the short 42.2km from Marathon to Athena after his 480km round trip via mountains to the Spartans, but everyone at the time, including modern day historians, doubt it.
We recognise the ultra-race format and Spartathlon, but Marathon is not a Greek truth.
Fun fact, the distance from Marathon to Athens in the legend is mentioned 25 miles (right now in Google maps it says 35km, so even less), it was modified to 26.2188 miles during 1908 London Olympics, because queen wanted the race to start at the Windsor Castle and to end at the entrance of the White City Stadium it was 26.2188 miles. And from that point that distance became the standard.
Gasp… The ancient Greek exaggerating numbers…they would never do such a thing. How could a people lacking such moral fortitude fight off 3 million Persians?
It’s just what’s on the road signs in Greece. The cities are named Athenai (you see Athena and Athenai depending on where/age) and Sparti (which is Sparti in English anyway, but a lot of foreigners confuse it as Sparta, which is the entire region).
I don’t remember the exactly where in Sparta the run ended, but Sparti is basically in the middle, surrounded by all the agriculture in the valley, and the mountains up behind it, so for anyone playing at home, it’s easy to just imagine or Maps the route from Athens to Sparti or Athena/Athenai to Sparti.
Edit: Oh, yeah! The Spartathlon ends in Sparti. At the stairs where the kind of underwhelming 1970s status of Leonidas is.
Pffff. He didn’t die after just 26 miles.
Dude ran from Athena to Sparti, then back. That’s not down the road.
Only one person said he did the short 42.2km from Marathon to Athena after his 480km round trip via mountains to the Spartans, but everyone at the time, including modern day historians, doubt it.
We recognise the ultra-race format and Spartathlon, but Marathon is not a Greek truth.
Fun fact, the distance from Marathon to Athens in the legend is mentioned 25 miles (right now in Google maps it says 35km, so even less), it was modified to 26.2188 miles during 1908 London Olympics, because queen wanted the race to start at the Windsor Castle and to end at the entrance of the White City Stadium it was 26.2188 miles. And from that point that distance became the standard.
Gasp… The ancient Greek exaggerating numbers…they would never do such a thing. How could a people lacking such moral fortitude fight off 3 million Persians?
Are you declining the names of the city states or using an uninflected spelling that’s more historical (or that you just prefer)?
If you’re declining, would it not be from Athenaikós to Spartaikí or are proper nouns handled differently?
It’s just what’s on the road signs in Greece. The cities are named Athenai (you see Athena and Athenai depending on where/age) and Sparti (which is Sparti in English anyway, but a lot of foreigners confuse it as Sparta, which is the entire region).
I don’t remember the exactly where in Sparta the run ended, but Sparti is basically in the middle, surrounded by all the agriculture in the valley, and the mountains up behind it, so for anyone playing at home, it’s easy to just imagine or Maps the route from Athens to Sparti or Athena/Athenai to Sparti.
Edit: Oh, yeah! The Spartathlon ends in Sparti. At the stairs where the kind of underwhelming 1970s status of Leonidas is.