Marathon

Marathon (mâr`əthŏn), village and plain, ancient Greece, 20 mi (32 km) NE of Athens. Here the Athenians and Plataeans under Miltiades defeated a Persian army in 490 B.C. (see Persian Wars).

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marathon

Long-distance footrace run on an open course of 26 miles 385 yards (42.2 km). First held at the revived Olympic Games in 1896, it commemorates the legendary feat of a Greek soldier who is said to have run from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC, a distance of about 25 mi (40 km), to report the Greek victory at the Battle of Marathon, after which he dropped dead. Marathons today are usually open events for both men and women, often run by thousands of participants, including the venerable Boston Marathon (established 1897). The women's marathon became an Olympic event in 1984.

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marathon

a race on foot of 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 kilometres): an event in the modern Olympics

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Marathon

a plain in Attica northeast of Athens: site of a victory of the Athenians and Plataeans over the Persians (490 bc)

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marathon

modern races, more than 26 miles, commemorate feat of Pheidippides. [World Sports: Benét, 633]

See : Athleticism

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Marathon

plain near Athens where Greeks defeated Persians in 490 B.C. [Gk. Hist.: Benét, 633]

See : Battle

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Marathon

an ancient Greek settlement on a plain of the same name in Attica (40 km northeast of Athens), in the vicinity of which a battle occurred on Sept. 13, 490 B.C., during the Greco-Persian Wars.

The Greek forces (11,000) were formed into a phalanx by the military leader Miltiades at the entrance to the Marathon valley; as a defense against a flanking movement by the Persian cavalry the strengthened flanks of the phalanx were protected by forested mountain spurs and abatis that were brought out in front. The Greeks attacked the Persians (about 20,000), who had landed by ship, with a “running march,” but they were counterattacked by Persian infantry bowmen, who broke through the weak center of the Greek phalanx. At the same time the strong elite detachments of Greeks overran the Persian cavalry and light infantry on the flanks and then defeated the Persian infantry in the center. Since the Greeks interrupted their pursuit of the Persians fleeing to the shore in order to bury their dead (192 men), the Persians managed to board their ships and sail to sea. At Marathon, Greek hoplites, moving in phalanx formation, defeated the more numerous but less organized and cohesive Persian Army.