This painting, “The Soldier of Marathon”, by Luc-Olivier Merson (1869), shows a nude runner reporting a victory of the Ancient Athenians against the Persians. The information was of extreme military importance, as the autonomy of Ancient Athens was partially dependent on it, and so the runner traversed an arduous distance of 40 kilometers or 26.2 miles to ensure the governors of Athens would get the message as fast as possible. Here, you see him after he has just given his all and is about to die, which probably would be my state had I ran that far. But this story is where the modern marathon race comes from.
There are actually different accounts of what happened, but sources agree that the Greeks had won an important victory against their Persian enemies at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE. The first-century CE historian Plutarch writes that it was likely a man called Eucles who raced from Marathon to Athens after the battle and that he “ran in full armour, hot from the battle.” He apparently burst through the doors to give his message and then dropped dead.
The actual marathon event didn’t ever happen in the Ancient Olympics, however, and only entered these games in 1896.
Sources: Valeria Melis, “Some reflections in the legend of the marathon runner,” _Classica Cracoviensia_, vol XXIII (2029), pp 25-54
