Pheidippides Remembered in Art June 6, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient , trackback
Beach recently enjoyed himself with three posts about the Athenian runner Pheidippides and while he was dipping into half forgotten but much loved sources he became curious about the treatment of the Pheidippides legend in the ‘art’ of the last couple of centuries, art understood in the loosest and most general sense. He, therefore, spent an hour on the various image and video pages offered by the world’s most famous search engine. Most of these images have been quarried by other webmasters from nineteenth-century histories or modern children’s books. At least this would be Beach’s guess. The most affecting is perhaps the one at the head of this post that shows the Marathon Runner (let’s call him Pheidippides and conform to general practice) running towards Athens. There are two wonderful features to this picture, only one of which the story passed down to us conveys: absolute exhaustion of the runner and the joy of those who are hearing the news as he runs towards the city. The children running in front and behind are a stroke of genius, especially the young girl (?) with the dog. Here, instead, is a particularly bad bit of Victorian art celebrating the moment that Pheidippides passes on his news and his spirit
Not sure what the spectral runner is about but perhaps the struggles of the Greeks in future centuries?
Here is a hopelessly melodramatic image, again from the moment of death. The politician speaking to the crowd is a fine touch and very Athenian.
There is something rather earnest and Enid Blyton about this one. Beach would bet that it came out of an Edwardian book teaching important Biggles-like values to little boys who were going to grow up and civilize savages in the Empire.
If Beach had to run from Athens from Marathon, he certainly would have thrown the shield in the first ditch. Necessarily heavy things…
Could this one by a Ladybird book. Perhaps a bit too serious? Beach found Pheidippides too Roman here and goodness those shin pads look painful. Presumably this version of the runner has Pheidippides not only running from Marathon but also fighting there.
A coin from of all places Tuvalu in the South Pacific: victory shouts Pheidippides. That silly shield again.
Here is a statue to Pheidippides with a suitable background.
Then a few comic points:
And Beach’s personal favourite:
Here’s a lovely one. A German athlete coming fourth in the Spartacon: the 150 mile race from Athens to Sparta in 1983 jumps up and embraces the laconic warrior who marks the finish line.
And this is a still from a Greek documentary about the run to Sparta.
Beach was, meanwhile, incredibly disappointed that there are no images of Pheidippides meeting Pan, perhaps his favourite WIBT moment from history. Can anyone help: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
7 June 2015: Wade writes ‘Tom Lovell, the illustrator of the image at the top of your post, was a superb illustrator. He basically became the house illustrator for National Geographic during the 1960s. I loved his illustrations growing up. They brought ancient civilizations alive for me.’ Thanks Wade!
