This year marks an important anniversary of one of the most famous battles in European history. Two thousand five hundred years ago, in 490 BC, a small Greek force decisively defeated a much larger invading Persian army at Marathon. Myth traces the cause of the conflict to the Trojan War; history attributes it to the rapid rise of the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC. Cyrus pressed westwards through Asia Minor in the mid-6th century, encountering fiercely independent Greek coastal settlements along the way. These Greeks rebelled against Cyrus’ successor, Darius the Great, in 499, and pushed the Persians inland as far as Sardis, a hundred miles from the sea. Incensed by these Ionian Greek gadflies, Darius resolved to conquer their homeland in retaliation.

At stake for Persia was wounded pride, that so small a country could successfully wage war against the major power of the Eastern Mediterranean. At stake for the Greeks was their liberty and, at Athens, the newly fledged experiment in politics, democracy. Cleisthenes had laid the foundations of this experiment with his reforms in 508-507, barely ten years before the Persian incursion. At the Battle of Marathon, the Greeks, and especially the Athenians, halted this Persian advance, and gave Greece ten years to prepare for the second Persian campaign that included the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea.

To celebrate this remarkable achievement, Emory’s Departments of Classics and Art History, the Program in Ancient Mediterranean Studies, and the Michael C. Carlos Museum, are convening a symposium, ΦΑΟΣ ΑΦΘΙΤΟΝ ΑΙΕΙ(Immortal Light): The Battle of Marathon and its Athenian Legend, and holding a 2.62 mile race through the Emory campus, the weekend of September 24 and 25.

Symposium
ΦΑΟΣ ΑΦΘΙΤΟΝ ΑΙΕΙ (Immortal Light): The Battle of Marathon and its Athenian Legend

Andrew Stewart, Professor of Art History and Classics Nicholas C. Petris Professor in Greek Studies,
University of California, Berkeley, will deliver the Art History Endowed Lecture as the keynote address for the symposium, "Go tell the Spartans . . ." War and the Warrior in Archaic Greek Art, on Friday September 24 at 7 pm. The symposium continues Saturday afternoon, September 25, from 1:00 – 4:30 pm. Seven distinguished Emory faculty will present short papers highlighting the importance of the battle and its electrifying impact on the society and artistic production of the time.

Featured speakers and topics include:

Cindy Patterson, Professor of History
Herodotus and the Battle of Marathon: Three Puzzles

Philipa Lang, Assistant Professor of Classics
Five ways to extract an arrow: a user's guide to battlefield surgery in antiquity

Jasper Gaunt, Curator of Greek and Roman Art
Heroes at Marathon: The great burial mound at the battlefield and other Athenian dedications

Peter Bing, Chair and Professor of Classics
The Marathon Epigrams

Niall Slater, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Latin and Greek
Comic Marathon

Bonna Wescoat, Associate Professor of Art History
Name, Mound, and Column: the Art of Commemoration from Marathon to the Vietnam Memorial

Sandra Blakely, Associate Professor of Classics
Heroes, Horses, and Hoplites of Unusual Size: Ghostly Apparitions at Marathon

Dolichos @ the Carlos

In popular culture, the Battle of Marathon is associated with Phidippides and his legendary run of 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens, where he is said to have announced the Greek victory with the single word Νενικήκαμεν meaning "We have won," collapsed, and died. It is this legend that gives both name and distance to the modern marathon.

At 9 am on Saturday morning, September 25, the Museum will host Dolichos*, a 2.62-mile race through the beautiful Emory campus to mark the anniversary of Phidippides' run. Registration begins at 8:30

The entry fee is $12 for Carlos Museum members and Emory staff, faculty, and alumni; Emory students run for free; all others, $15. Runners will receive a Dolichos @ the Carlos "technical t-shirt." Winners will receive gift cards generously provided by Phidippides Running Center. Entrance fee includes free admission to the Carlos on Saturday, September 25.

To register, please download this form, fill it out, save, and email it to ehornor@emory.edu. You may also fax it to 404 727 4292, or mail it to:
Dolichos @ the Carlos
Michael C. Carlos Museum
571 S. Kilgo Circle
Atlanta, GA 30322

To register online through the Emory Alumni Association, click here and find the form under the events for Saturday, September 25 (this page may take a moment to load).

These programs are made possible by Emory University's Program in Mediterranean Studies, Art History Department Endowed Lecture Fund, and Michael C. Carlos Museum, Athletics and Recreation and Alumni Association; Mr. & Mrs. Timothy S. Sotos; Phidippides Running Center, serving Atlanta's running community since 1972; WABE 90.1, Chef Pano I. Karatassos and Kyma, the Consulate of Greece, and the Coca-Cola Company.

* Dolichos is the Greek word for a race 2-3 miles in length.