BATTLE OF MARATHON. 

In 490 BC, the Future of Greece and probably the future western civilization was fought on the beach of Marathon between the greek citystate of Athens and the persian empire. Prelude: Before the persian invasion of Greece, The greek city states stood as a small spot next to the gigantic persian empire who stood from the borders of greece in the west, to northern india in the east. In the years leading up to the invasion, Athens had supported Greek rebellions in the persian controlled regian of anatolia, the rebellions were brutally beaten down and the persian king Darius saw athens support to the rebels as unforgivable andsought to punish Athens by expanding his empire into Greece. The perisans with their massive armies assumed the greeks would just submit to their demands, as with countless other kingdoms persia had invaded, but when they sent messangers to Athens and other city states, demanding they submit to persian rule by handing gifts of earth and water. AKA, "give us your land or we kill you" The atheans instead threw the messangers down a ravine, The spartans threw the persian messangers down a well, (heh, just like in 300) and prepared for war. The greeks would not hand over their lands without a fight.   Darius assembeled his forces in a massive fleet and sailed for Greece, expecting a pushover. he was acompanied by a Greek, Hippias, who was the former tyrant ruler of Athens, Thrown out after an uprising and into exile, hoping to regain his crown by cooperating with the persians. He adviced the persians of a propper landing area, the beach of marathon, a wide open terrain that suited the persians vast numbers. Meanwhile the Athenians and their allies had gathered their forces overlooking marathon. They were lead by a man named Miltiades, Overall Miltiades had some 10000 men at his disposal, greatly outnumbered by some 30000 persians who also had the battlefield advantage. For several days the armies faced eachothers, neither willing to make a move. the persians were still unloading their troops and supplies and it's aslo suggested they were hoping that Athenians loyal to Hippias would rise up, and the Greeks were waiting for reinforcements from Sparta, who had the best warriors in all of greece, but the spartans, would not aid the Athenians, At the time there was a religious festival in Sparta and the Spartans refused to fight until the festival was over and by that time it would be to late. The deadlock was finally broken when the Persian commander hatched a daring plan, he secretly loading most of the Persian cavalry along with a handful of infantry with the intention of sailing to another beach just at Athens, hoping to make a surprise attack on the undefended city. But the Athenians uncovered the plan, Miltiades now knew it was all or nothing, a Persian fleet was sailing towards the undefended Athens, but their main force in Marathon was now greatly weakened. Despite still being greatly outnumbered, he made the decision to attack. The battle: Miltiades Formed up is troops in phalanx formation, but due to the wide battlefield and the Persians superior numbers, He broke protocol hand had the phalanx formations in the center line thinned out in order to cover up the whole battlefield, But he had his flanks in standard formations, as they were the most important part of the line. Though outnumbered, the Greek hoplites were well trained and well armored with EXTRA THICC bronze, leather and Linen armors, the Persians were trained and equipped for mobile warfare in the steps of Asia and so were mostly not armored and were armed with light weapons. The Persians relied in their archers to crush the Greek attack, With massed volleys from hundreds of archers, the Greeks would have to sprint the last distance towards the Persian line or else they'd be slaughtered and the Persians assumed that by the time the Greeks had reached their line they'd be to exhausted to fight. That would not happen though, As the Greeks got withing the Persian archers line of fire, some 200 meters they started sprinting and as the Persians fired their arrows many simply bounced of the Greeks thick armor, helmets and shields, and they did not slow down and they were certainly not exhausted when they reached the Persian lines, the Persians had underestimated the well trained hoplites physical fitness. heck, there was even an event in the then Olympics in which hoplites in full armor sprinted twice as far as they had to in marathon. Though the Persians did have heavy arrows capable of piercing the hoplite armor, it was not enough to stop them.   When the 2 armies collided the Persians found out their light weapons were almost useless against the well armored hoplites who inflicted terrible losses on the Persians, But through cheer numbers the Persians started to drive the Greeks back, but then both of the Greek flanks broke through the Persian lines and encircled the Persian forces, the Persians tried to push them back but every attack was beaten back by the Greek phalanx formations, and it seemed that no amount of arrows could stop the Greeks. What happened next was little more than a slaughter as the Persians broke and made a break for their ships. In the stampede many Persians were trampled to death by their comrades and as they desperately boarded the ships, they were being slaughter by the chasing Greeks. As the surviving persians fled, the greeks collapsed from exhaustion. but the war was not over. Miltiades ordered the tired greeks to march back to Athens in haste, While the battle had been raising, the persians fleet was getting closer to athens. Luckily the greeks got there first, And when the persians saw the greek army on the beaches in battle formation, they fled back to persia. The Greeks had won. Aftermath: The Athenians had won a great battle against the persians, militarly it was not a a huge loss for the persians with their vast armies, but but their morale and prestiege had been severly wounded in tghis battle, it proved that persian was not as invincible as they though, and the greeks now knew the persians could be beaten. Shortly after the battle the Spartans did arrive only to discover that the Athenians had already defeated the Persian and with it all of the glory, this embarrassed the spartans as they considered the Athenians inferior. This is just a personal theory, bit i think this embarrassment of coming short of the battle could be why in the second Persian invasion king Leonidas ignored their religious festival and marched to Thermopylae with his 300 spartans, not wanting the glory taken from their grasp again. It is said that after the battle. the Greek runner Pheidippides sprinted as fast has he could towards Athens, not stopping for anything, It is then said that when he reached Athens he delivered the message of the victory at Marathon and immediately after died from exhaustion. Weather it is true or not, Pheidippides run has been romanticized in grek culture and would serve as the inspiration for the Marathon race, which is today popular and well used around the world. After his defeat, The Persian king Darius made preparations for another invasion of Greece, But he died before it could be carried out. it would fall to his son Xerxes to invade Greece, which he did 10 years after marathon with an army 10 times bigger than the army his father had commanded. This invasion eventually failed to after the spartan stand on Thermopylae gave the rest of Greece enough time to prepare and eventually beat the Persians in the sea battle of Salamis.

JOHANNESBURG  | South African man who survived impaling to run ultramarathon

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JOHANNESBURG  | South African man who survived impaling to run ultramarathon

JOHANNESBURG  — A South African man who was impaled on a crowbar in a 2015 mining accident has qualified to run in the Comrades ultramarathon on Sunday.

Daniel de Wet lost a kidney and suffered other internal injuries when the 1.8-meter (5.9-foot) metal rod entered his groin area and exited his back just below a shoulder blade.

The 37-year-old said he was “given a second chance” in life and he looks forward to the 89-kilometer (55-mile) Comrades run between the South African cities of Pietermaritzburg and Durban. He ran in the ultramarathon six times before the accident.

“I’m very positive. I’m a little bit nervous,” de Wet said in an interview with The Associated Press. He acknowledged “that small, small hesitation of thinking: ‘Am I going to make it or not?'”

De Wet, who started training last year, completed a marathon last month in four hours and 50 minutes, just under the qualifying time of five hours needed to enter Comrades. He has set himself an ultramarathon goal of 10 hours and 54 minutes, his time when he first ran it. The Comrades cut-off time is 12 hours.

He said he doesn’t want to “overwork my one kidney” and will be careful not to drink too much at water stations, while making sure he stays hydrated. A fellow runner will “take me through to the end” and the support of his wife and three children has been invaluable, said de Wet, an engineering supervisor with the Sibanye-Stillwater mining company.

De Wet’s horrific accident occurred in January 2015 when he slipped onto the crowbar in a mine in Carletonville, a gold-mining area near Johannesburg. He was conscious and sitting awkwardly on a stretcher with the crowbar in his torso as rescuers took him to the surface, where he was airlifted to a hospital. Trauma surgeons removed the crowbar and de Wet was discharged 19 days later.

De Wet’s ordeal and return to running symbolize what the ultramarathon is about — “the power of the human spirit,” said Cheryl Winn, chair of the Comrades Marathon Association.

“It’s incredible what people can actually achieve if they put their minds and their bodies down to it,” said Winn, who won Comrades in 1982 and described the run as “absolutely tortuous.”

People with cystic fibrosis have run the ultramarathon and the thousands of competitors this year include a man in a wheelchair with multiple sclerosis, according to Winn.

Past runners include Carl Peatfield, who suffered brain damage after a cyanide poisoning accident at his workplace and ran in the 2002 ultramarathon in a kind of harness supported by four friends. Sam Tshabalala, who in 1989 became the first black person to win Comrades when South Africa was still under white minority rule, was injured in a car accident in 1991 but won several silver medals in subsequent years.

The first Comrades was held in 1921 with only three dozen participants and commemorated South African soldiers who died in World War I. Today, race organizers allow a maximum of 20,000 runners. Black runners were officially barred from participating until 1975, the height of the apartheid era.

Comrades runners are subjected to “some of the most brutal terrain” in any marathon or ultramarathon in the world, South African Bruce Fordyce, who won Comrades a record nine times, wrote in a blog post.

For de Wet, Sunday’s run will be a gift, whatever happens.

“We are taking life for granted,” he said. “You realize, to be healthy is actually a very, very important thing.”

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By Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (A.S)

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