Marathon, Greece

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Marathon (. M. sg ) ( altgr. and Katharevousa Μαραθών, neugr Μαραθώνας Marathonas, . Translated fennel - field) is a municipality north-east of Athens in Greece, on the east coast of ancient Attica.

Near them was 490 BC Battle of Marathon between the Persians and Athenians held out of which the Athenians were under the commander Miltiades victorious.

Today's church was formed at the administrative reform in 2010 by the union of the larger neighboring community of Nea Makri and the small farming communities Grammatiko and Varnavas with Marathon.

Near the town is the important for the water supply of Athens Marathon reservoir.

Marathon

To the Battle of Marathon is entwines the legend of the messenger Pheidippides. In the most common version of the story Pheidippides is placed in the approximately 40 km from Athens the news of victory from the battlefield and died after Ceremony for the presentation message on the Areopagus of exhaustion. However, this distance should have presented no difficulty for an experienced runner, and since this legend only in Plutarch, who lived about 600 years after the battle, is, it must be kept for invention or Athenian propaganda. This story forms the basis of the modern marathon race. Since 1982 there is the Athens Marathon, which takes place at this track and has his goal in the Athens Olympic Stadium in 1896.

Research discussion

Although the marathon runner is now counted among the most historians as a later invention, there are still voices who believe in the historical truth of the rotor. Th example Yannakis makes as a champion of truth of the rotor to the following items carefully: by Philostratus, we know that everywhere in Greece were state runners and armies always busy messenger to keep in touch with the outside world. In contrast, the opponents of this view argue that Herodotus, whose marathon battle description is completely down to us as a single, even though after the battle, he wrote only a few decades his work, nothing was announced on the mover. On the contrary, Herodotus mentions another Pheidippides, who is said to have traveled the distance from Athens to Sparta in two days. The fact that a runner this route travels around 245 km in two days, while another collapses after the relatively short distance between Marathon and Athens there is unbelievable and makes together with the fact that Herodotus otherwise everything him about the deeds of the Athenians fell into the hands up in his work, the story implausible. The earliest ancient historians, who call the marathon runner, are Plutarch and Lucian, report both more than 500 years later. Another indication of a later invention of the rotor is that several names, but are each handed without patronymic and Demotikon. The barrel can thus be kept as a later invention of the imperial period, is probably a legend in the context of the Athenian Ephebencurriculums - for example, as justification for the gun barrel of ephebes.

Museum

In the city marathon, there is a grave mound, in which the 192 at the Battle fallen at Marathon Athenians said to have been buried, not far away, there is another, probably for Plataeans who fought in the battle on the side of the Athenians, and a third grave mounds from the 13th century BC from Achaean time.

In addition to this third grave hill there is a Museum, which houses archaeological finds from around Marathon and especially sculptures from a villa of Herodes Atticus, who came from this area.