THE FIRST MARATHON
"By George!" exclaimed Dick, as he looked about him. "I wish we had a
moving picture machine on board. This would make a dandy film."
There was certainly motion enough to satisfy the most ardent advocate of
the "strenuous life." The deck was humming with life at its fullest. Two
hundred young athletes in their picturesque costumes were working away
as though their lives depended on it. Here a swimmer splashed in the
tank and ran the gamut of all the strokes--the "side," the "sneak," the
"crawl," the "trudgeon." From the fencers' quarters came the clash
of steel on steel, as they thrust and parried, now retreating, now
advancing, seeking to touch with the buttoned point the spot that marked
their opponent's heart. The bark of the revolver and the more pronounced
crack of the rifle bespoke the effort of the marksmen to round into
form. Drake at the stern was striving to outdo his rivals in casting the
discus far behind the ship. On the cork track the hundred-yard men
were flashing like meteors from end to end, while the milers and
long-distance men circled the ship at ten laps to the mile. The trainers
snapped the watches on the trial heats and strove to correct defects of
form or pace. Everywhere was speed and energy and abounding life. It was
a fine example of the spirit that has made America great--the careful
preparation, the unwearied application, the deadly determination that
simply refuses to lose when it has once entered upon a struggle. And
Bert's heart bounded as he realized that he was one of this splendid
band chosen to uphold the honor of the flag. The thought added wings to
his feet as he flew again and again around the track, and he might have
prolonged the trial far beyond the point of prudence had it not been for
the restraining hand of Reddy. That foxy individual never let his
sporting blood--and he had aplenty--run away with his common sense. He
knew when to apply the brake as well as the spur, and on this first day
under the novel conditions the brake was the more important. So, long
before Bert would have stopped of his own accord and while he was
reeling off the miles with no sense of exhaustion, Reddy called a halt.
"Enough is plenty," said he, in answer to Bert's protestations that he
had just begun to run. "Even if the ship is steady, we've got to take
account of the motion. You can't do on sea what you can on land. Ye'll
get leg-sore if ye keep it up too long." So Bert, although full of
running, took his shower and called it a morning's work.
A shorter run in the afternoon rounded out his first day's practice, and
after supper the boys sat around on deck, enjoying the cooling breeze.
Professor Davis of their own college, who was one of the members of the
Olympic Committee, had lighted his cigar and joined the group of Blues.
Although a scholar of world-wide reputation, he was by no means of the
"dry-as-dust" type. Alive to his finger tips, he was as much a boy as
any of them. All ceremony had been put off with his scholastic cap and
gown, and now, as he sat with them in easy good fellowship, he was for
the moment not their teacher but their comrade.
"Yes," said the Professor, as he looked musingly over the rail, while
the _Northland_ steadily ploughed her way through the waves; "what
Waterloo was to modern Europe, what Gettysburg is to the United States,
Marathon was to Greece. Perhaps a more important battle was never fought
in the history of the world."
A chance remark about the Marathon race had set the Professor going, and
the boys eagerly drew their chairs nearer. They were always keenly
interested in anything that savored of a fight, and the "Prof." had a
striking way of telling a story. He had the gift of making his hearers
see the thing that he described. As Tom put it, "he didn't give
lectures, he drew pictures." It was a picture that he drew now, and, as
they listened, they were no longer young Americans of the twentieth
century, but Greek youth of twenty-five hundred years earlier. They
might have been shepherds or goatherds, tending their flocks on the
mountain slopes above the Bay of Marathon, looking open-eyed at the
great Persian fleet of six hundred ships, as it slowly sailed into the
bay and prepared to disembark the troops.
The immediate object of the expedition was the capture and destruction
of Athens, which had defied Darius, King of Persia, and added insult to
injury by invading his territory and burning the city of Sardis.
To have his beard plucked in this insolent fashion was something new to
the haughty king. He was the autocrat of all Asia. Courtiers fawned upon
him; nations cringed before him. He styled himself "King of Kings and
Lord of Lords," and no one had the hardihood to dispute the title. He
was the Caesar of the Asiatic world, and Persia occupied the same
position as that afterward held by Rome in Europe. It was not to be
borne that this little state of Athens should dare to flout his
authority. When he heard of the burning of Sardis, his rage was
frightful. He shot an arrow into the air as a symbol of the war he
prepared to wage. He commanded that every day a slave waiting at table
should remind him: "Sire, remember the Athenians." He sent heralds to
all the Greek cities with terrible threats of reprisals, but they were
sent back with mockery and ridicule. A mighty armament that he had
marshaled was wrecked, but, nothing daunted, he organized another. And
it was this vast army that now threatened sack and destruction to the
cities of Greece.
It had already captured Eretria, and its surviving citizens were now
held in chains, waiting for the Athenians to be joined with them and
brought into the presence of King Darius, who was already taxing his
ingenuity to devise unheard of tortures for them. And now the galleys
had been beached on the shelving shores of the Bay of Marathon, on the
edge of which the village stood in a plain that widened in the center,
but drew together at the ends like the horns of a crescent. Here they
leisurely came on shore, elated at their first victory on Grecian soil
and looking confidently for a second.
Upon the outcome of that day hung the future of the world. If Persia
won, the last barrier would have been demolished that shut out Asia
from Europe, and there would have been no serious check to prevent the
barbarian hordes from swarming over the entire continent. Greek art and
culture and civilization would have been blotted out and the entire
course of history would have been changed.
It seemed the fight of a pigmy against a giant. The odds in favor of the
Persians were tremendous. Hundreds of galleys had been required to carry
their forces to the Grecian coast. One hundred thousand men, trained and
veteran warriors, accustomed to victory, were drawn up in battle array.
Against this mighty host the Greeks had about ten thousand men. They had
sent for help to Sparta, but, under the influence of a superstitious
custom, the Spartans had refused to march until the moon was at the
full. Only a thousand men from Plataea came to the assistance of the
outnumbered Athenians.
For several days the armies faced each other, the Persians drawn up on
the plain of Marathon and the Greeks encamped on a hillside a mile
distant. There were ten commanders of the little force, and opinion was
divided as to whether they should attack at once or wait for the help of
Sparta. By a narrow margin the bolder policy prevailed, and it was
decided to grapple with the enemy then and there.
The Persians were astounded when they saw the devoted little army
rushing down the slope and making at double-quick across the plain,
chanting their battle song. It seemed like madness or suicide. Half
contemptuously, they formed ranks to receive them. The Greeks burst upon
them with irresistible fury. The very fierceness and audacity of the
attack confused and demoralized their opponents. The center stood its
ground, but the wings gave way. Soon the battle became a rout; the rout
a massacre. The Persians were beaten back to their galleys with terrible
loss and hastily put out to sea. The Greeks lost only a hundred and
ninety-two men, and over the bodies of these was erected a huge funeral
mound that remains to the present day, as a memorial of that wonderful
fight.
The battle had been begun in the late afternoon and dusk had fallen when
the slaughter ceased. After the first wild jubilation the thought of the
victors turned toward Athens, twenty-six miles away. The city was
waiting with bated breath for news of the struggle, watching, praying,
fearing, scarcely daring to hope. News must be gotten to them at once.
Pheidippides, a noted runner, started off on foot. The roads were rough
and hilly, but he ran through the night as one inspired. To all he met
he shouted the news and kept on with unabated ardor. Hills rose and
fell behind him. His breath came in gasps. On he went, the fire of
patriotic passion burning in his veins. Now from the brow of a hill he
saw the lights of Athens.
On, on he ran, but by this time his legs were wavering, his brain was
reeling. He had not spared himself and now he was nearly spent. He
gathered himself together for one last effort and staggered into the
market place where all the city had gathered. They rushed forward to
meet him. He gasped out: "Rejoice. We conquer," and fell dead at their
feet. His glorious exploit with its tragical ending made him a national
hero, and his name was held in reverence as long as the city endured.
The speaker stopped, and for a few minutes no one spoke. The boys had
been too deeply stirred. Their thoughts were still with that lonely
runner rushing through the night. It was a shock to come from beneath
the spell and get back to the present.
"I suppose, Professor," said Tom, at last, "that you've seen the place
where the battle was fought?"
"Yes," was the reply, "I was there on the same trip when I visited
Olympia."
"What," broke in Bert, "the identical place where the first Olympic
games were held nearly three thousand years ago?"
"The identical spot," smiled the professor. "You can still see the walls
of the old Stadium where the games were held. Of course the greater part
of it is in ruins after so long a time, but you can get a very good idea
of the whole thing. It's a beautiful spot and I don't wonder the old
Greeks went crazy over it."
"Those fellows were 'fresh-air fiends,' all right," said Tom. "You
wouldn't think they had any homes. Everything you read about seems to
have happened in the streets or the market place or the gymnasium."
"Yes," returned the professor, "the Greeks were a nation of festivals.
They lived out of doors, and their glorious climate made possible all
sorts of open-air gatherings and recreations. Their love of beauty, as
shown especially in the human form, found expression in the sports and
exercises that developed the body to the fullest extent. They did not
neglect the soul--Plato and Socrates and hosts of others bear testimony
to that--but the body and its development were always uppermost in their
thoughts. They honored their thinkers, but they worshipped their
athletes. Physical exercises began almost in infancy and continued to
extreme old age and the chief honors of the state were reserved for
those who excelled in some form of bodily strength. Poets sang about
them and statues were raised to them."
"What games did they have?" asked Dick.
"Very much the same as ours," was the answer. "There was a hippodrome
for chariot racing, and if you boys remember the description in
'Ben-Hur,' you can imagine how exciting it was. Then there were foot
races, at first a single lap around the course, but afterward developing
into middle and long-distance running. Besides these were wrestling,
leaping, discus-throwing, boxing and hurling the javelin."
"There's one thing I like about them," said Bert. "They weren't
bloodthirsty, like the Romans."
"No, we must give them credit for that. There were no better fighters in
the world. But the infliction of wanton cruelty, the shedding of blood
needlessly, the gloating over human suffering, was wholly repulsive to
the Greeks. Perhaps they hated it, not because it was wicked, but
because it was ugly. Rome wallowed in wounds and blood. It shouted with
delight as gladiators hewed and hacked each other and wild beasts tore
women and children to pieces. Its horrible thirst was never slaked and
its appetite grew by what it fed upon. The Coliseum with its sickening
sights could never have existed in Greece. The Romans developed the
brute in man; the Greeks developed the god."
"I suppose they had to train pretty hard for the games," mused Bert, as
he thought of the iron rule of Reddy.
"They certainly did," laughed the professor. "You fellows think you have
to work hard, but they worked harder. Why, they had to train steadily
for ten months before they entered for any event. Then, too, they had to
walk pretty straight. Before the games, a herald challenged all who
might know of any wrong thing a competitor had done to stand forth and
declare it openly. So that when a man came out winner, he had a
certificate of character as well as skill."
"No doubt the fellows that won were looked upon as the real thing,"
suggested Dick.
"I should say so," said the professor. "The value placed upon a victory
was almost incredible. To our cooler Western natures it seems excessive.
The fellow citizens of the victor carried him home in triumph. They
supported him for the rest of his life. He became the first citizen in
the state. The town walls were broken down so that he might enter by a
path that had never before been trodden by human foot."
"Well," remarked Dick, "I don't suppose Uncle Sam will go as crazy as
all that when Bert comes home with the Marathon prize."
"_If_ he comes home with it, you mean," corrected Bert. "'There's many a
slip 'twixt cup and lip,' and I may be in for one of the slips."
"Whether you are or not," rejoined the professor, as they rose to
retire, "rests 'on the lap of the gods.' But what we do know is that,
win or lose, you're going to do your best.
"''Tis not in mortals to achieve success,
They may do more--deserve it.'"