Note 18 — Chapter VII · ATTICA

See chapter xviii, p. 422. This incident, not given by Herodotus, is recorded by Plutarch (De Gloria Atheniensium, 3), who says that most authorities give the name of the runner as Eucles but Heracleides Ponticus calls him Thersippus. The soldier, as he tells us, ran the twenty-six miles in full armour and, on reaching the city, with his last breath exclaimed: Χαίρετε καὶ χαίρομεν, “Fare well! we are faring well,” or—the double meaning is elusive—“Greetings! Rejoice, we too are rejoicing!” Browning followed Lucian’s later version, which is apparently a contaminatio with the story of Phidippides, the courier between Sparta and Athens, for which see chapter iii, p. 72.