Pheidippides would have been challenged to retain both his physical constitution and his mental equanimity. When he came upon each new city-state, it was important for him to communicate clearly and concisely with the interceptors and to appear confident and astute. If he gave off an aura of delirium or hopelessness, it would send a chilling message to these other Greek territories that the Athenians had little hope of prevailing against the invading Persians, and this was a sentiment he wouldn’t have wanted to convey.
While scholars and historians have consistently mentioned the deeds of Pheidippides, they’ve never dedicated much analysis to the plight of this great hemerodromos, despite the critical importance that recruiting the Spartans played in the course of history. Most academics seemingly take for granted the feat of this legendary hemerodromos and question it no further. Perhaps this is owing to the way Herodotus so casually mentions Pheidippides being dispatched to Sparta without further elaboration on what pulling off such an unfathomable undertaking entails, as though his ability to successfully run 140 miles nonstop was a forgone conclusion. In Herodotus’s time, the role of a hemerodromos was to run great distances, no big deal. This guy was just doing his job, that’s all.
Most modern scholars and historians are completely unfamiliar with modern ultramarathoning and thus lack much firsthand experience in what it’s like to run such a great distance in so little time. They just take his accomplishment at face value and leave it at that, kind of like Herodotus did.
Yet, as anyone who has ever attempted to run an ultramarathon can attest, the chances of success are no greater than the odds of failure, especially when you’re talking about running farther than 100 miles, in sandals or barefoot, over mountainous terrain and without much access to food, water, or supplies. This perspective with regard to the true difficulties facing Pheidippides is entirely lacking in scholarly depictions of the events and outcomes surrounding the Battle of Marathon.
By competing in the Spartathlon, I was afforded a more intimate glimpse into how Pheidippides must have felt during his run to Sparta and the tremendous pressure he was under to remain composed. Although he would have had no way of knowing the historic significance his undertaking would eventually play in shaping world history, he would certainly have known that if he were to fail in his mission, Athens would fall. If there was to be any hope of overthrowing the Persians and driving them back to their homeland, recruiting the Spartans into battle would be paramount. This knowledge would have weighed heavily upon Pheidippides’s psyche, and as the Greeks have shown us, the mind is the master of the body. He must have fought hard to tame the inevitable feelings of fatalism, knowing full well that the odds for his success, and for the future of Greece, were not good.
The highway leaving Corinth dropped back down onto rural byways. Soon, empty roads and rich pastoral farmlands replaced the refineries and the maddening snarl of traffic. The occasional car that did pass puttered along gingerly, seemingly unhurried and unrushed. It was a much different feeling out here. My lungs began to clear and I ran alone, by orchards and vineyards, through great fields of empty earth, past rippled expanses of rock outcroppings spackled with patchworks of greenish blue lichen. It continued to amaze me that the group of runners competing in the Spartathlon had become so isolated. Despite there being more than 300 competitors at the starting line, there was hardly another sign of a fellow athlete anywhere to be seen. A few stray dogs wandered past, but other than their disinterested presence, I ran in complete solitude.
The bag of food that Nikos had given me in Corinth contained an assortment of items, including several figs. Those seemed to be sitting best in my stomach. The once delectable pasteli now tasted like maple syrup mixed with talcum powder, chalky and repulsively sweet, and I could no longer tolerate the stuff like I had during my training runs. I tried gnawing on a piece of cured meat, but it was rubbery in texture and the gristle was impossible to chew. Holding the masticated pieces in my mouth like chewing tobacco, I did my best to extract some of the salty residue from the meat juices, knowing that the sodium would help replenish some of the essential electrolytes that were being depleted in my perspiration, then I’d spit out the cuddy remains in the bushes along the roadside.
The smaller townships we runners now passed through were more alive than those we encountered earlier on. Children laughed and played as I sauntered by. They knew that the Spartathlon was passing through their town, and they cheered, clapped, and giggled at the strange outfits we runners wore. Some joined alongside me on bicycles or push scooters for stretches. They seemed to find this practice quite entertaining, as did I. Being around kids always brought me back to life. They occupied a world that was simpler, one more innocent and carefree than ours, and hearing their laughter and watching their liveliness brought with it familial feelings of warmth and joy.
On the outskirts of a village in the Assos District, a group of youngsters clad in traditional Greek clothing were dancing in the streets, acrobatically twisting and twirling to the rhythm, putting on a show for us runners hoofing past. I slowed to watch their graceful maneuvers, marveling at the remarkable agility and skillfulness they possessed. Seeing my interest, they elevated the precision and sharpness of their movements to a new, higher level, their feet whipping with increasing speed and astounding exactness. As the song’s beat built to a climactic crescendo, dust swirling in the air, I hailed and clapped, “Opa! Opa! Bravo! Bravo!”
They bowed formally to me, panting and drenched with perspiration, expressing their gratitude for my acknowledgment of their routine. To be honest, the pleasure was all mine. I’ve seen lots of Greek dancing over the years—some by award-winning production companies—and these kids were some of the best I’d ever observed.
As quickly as I’d come upon this festive roadside gathering, the sound faded into the background and I continued along my path. Once again I found myself completely alone and running down a narrow rustic road that drowsily meandered through the pastoral landscape, groves of olive trees casting lengthening shadows across the way as the sun dipped lower into the horizon. The warm afternoon air was nearly motionless, the aroma of wild rosemary and coriander drifting lazily in the stillness. Nectar-laden honeybees buzzed about blissfully; fields of abundant blossoms stretched endlessly. For the first time since embarking upon this journey at the base of the Acropolis, I felt at one with the land. Finally I’d found my peaceful place to recharge.
Then, suddenly, a speeding police car came careening around the corner heading straight for me, its sirens blaring in full alert. My heart skipped a beat, but no sooner than I saw the flashing lights in front of me did I turn to see a late-model blue BMW racing toward me from the opposite direction. It appeared dusty and dented, and the driver looked wild-eyed and crazed. When he spotted the cop car coming toward him, he yanked the wheel around and sent the vehicle spinning 180 degrees into a ditch alongside the road. The police car came screeching to a halt, and two armed officers jumped out, pointing their guns and yelling. Dust flew everywhere as the BMW spewed steam from its crushed radiator, hissing violently. I stood there frozen in disbelief.
Along with the driver, there were two passengers in the car. All of them were young males, and they appeared dirty and disheveled. The gun-wielding officers ordered them to lie facedown with their hands behind their heads, but the men just stood there with their arms jutted straight toward the sky as though they had no idea what was being said. One of the officers grabbed an assailant and threw him to the ground, cuffing him while kneeling on his back. His two accomplices then lay down on the ground, mimicking their friend. They, too, were handcuffed. The whole thing took place in a suspended instant of time.
What I came to learn later was that the men were likely Syrian refugees seeking asylum from their civil war. As the fighting intensified, illegal immigration was becoming a burgeoning problem. The dreadful irony was that the Greek economy was in no shape to handle this influx of new immigrants. In some ways things in Gree
ce were no better than they were in other parts of the world, though at least in Greece there was no one pointing a gun at your head, unless, of course, you stole a car.
While there was no excuse for their behavior, these were desperate men, destitute and displaced, with no hope for a better life and no promise of a brighter tomorrow. At least in a Greek prison they would be fed.
Perhaps most disturbing about the situation was that these young men had likely paid for transportation to Italy. But unscrupulous traffickers had begun dumping refugees from Syria and Afghanistan on uninhabited Greek islands or unloading passengers on the shoreline under the veil of nightfall, claiming it was Italy. The Greeks had fewer resources to patrol their waters than the Italians did, and the trip across the Mediterranean to Greece was shorter, saving these traffickers both fuel costs and time.
Here I’d been carelessly striding about this rustic countryside on a slow path to enlightenment when the tragic dichotomy of this conflicted land was thrust upon me like a kick to the gut. Suddenly witness to the brutal realities pervasive in this world, I found it impossible not to recognize that in 2,500 years of conflict and warfare between men and nations, not much had changed. Like an unsettling Homeric revelation, the unforeseen drama of this episode shocked my sensibilities, toppling the pillars supporting my worldview to the ground. The plight of humanity was still as doleful as ever; we just possessed greater means of exploitation and killing these days.
With this disturbing realization fresh in my mind, I ran into the setting sun.
Crossing into Corinth (top), The media circus (bottom)
24
GEORGE CLOONEY
When I would see my crew again was uncertain. Perhaps they had communicated this information to me during our last encounter, but in the swirling chaos that was Corinth, little had been retained.
Did it matter? Not really. I’d trained myself to be self-reliant. I’d seen too many ultramarathoners’ performances suffer when they didn’t get their special potion or their secret sauce at a certain juncture. This, to me, always appeared like more of a psychological blow than a physiological one. Anyway, I didn’t want to be dependent on anything other than my wits and my own two feet.
The rumble of a car materialized in the stillness behind me. From what I could tell, it was moving quite slowly, but I still gave it a wide berth, moving myself well off onto the shoulder of the road. Given the police chase I’d witnessed earlier, erring on the side of caution seemed warranted.
As the vehicle passed beside me, the driver howled out the window, “Yasou, Kostas!”
Startled, I turned to see a lone driver in some funky European brand of car I could not identify. All the windows were rolled down, and the driver dangled his arm casually outside.
“How’s my long-lost Greek friend?” he asked. He looked like he could be an Athenian shop owner, wise to the ways of the world, and perhaps a bit hardened by them, too. His English was good, though he spoke with a heavy Greek accent.
“I’m doing all right,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”
“Hey, I brought you a little something.” He held up a paper bag.
“Thanks. What is it?”
“It’s a chocolate chip cookie from one of the best pastry shops in Greece!”
“Oh man, thank you, really, but I’ve been told to never trust a Greek bearing gifts.”
“Ha!” he snickered. “That whole Trojan Horse thing was eons ago. Here, take it.” He held the bag out to me, “They’re heavenly.”
“I appreciate it, really, I do, but I’m trying to follow this special Greek diet.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard, but who would ever know?”
I guess he was right. There were no other runners around to witness this act, and besides, it wasn’t against the rules to eat a chocolate chip cookie. That was an imposition of my own doing. He was tempting me, like the siren sisters, only instead of promising otherworldly sensual pleasures, he was offering me man’s other great vulnerability, food.
“Hey, look, it’s really nice of you, but I would know.”
He gazed at me queerly. My response didn’t seem to compute. If I were the only one who knew that I was getting away with something, wasn’t that a good thing?
That’s precisely the sort of convoluted Greek rationale that had gotten this country into trouble, I thought. Every local merchant knew that the other was running a Greek till, so why shouldn’t he do the same? One dollar in the register, one dollar in the ol’ pocket. Who would know? The government had tried to crack down on this practice, but they were just as corrupt as everyone else. The buck (er . . . drachma) had to stop somewhere, and my refusal of that cookie was a bold step in the right direction. Or maybe not.
“Sure you don’t want it?”
“Thanks, man, I’m sure.”
“Okay, suit yourself.” He pulled the cookie out of the bag and started to maw on it. “Mmm,” he moaned with pleasure, “that’s delicious.”
Ouch. I’m sure it was really delicious, even heavenly. A lot better than warm olives and leathery cured meat, that’s for sure.
He puttered alongside me for a while, eating his cookie. After he’d finished it, he licked his fingers clean.
“Boy, that bakery is really something else,” he said. “A true Greek treasure.”
I’m not sure he fully comprehended the internal anguish watching him devour that cookie caused me, both physically and emotionally. But one must exercise discipline in order to remain resolute. The economic calamity in Greece and the Greek people’s attitude toward it seemed rather undignified to me. National pride had suffered badly as a result; there was no denying this. As the economic journalist James Angelos so aptly put it in his book, The Full Catastrophe, “Doomed to perpetually contrast themselves to the unmatchable splendor of their predecessors, Greeks often confront a nagging sense of inadequacy and strain under the weight of their own historical narrative like few other people on the planet.” Still, I had an empathetic streak within me, as though the Greek people were trapped inside a powerful undercurrent that callously pulled them down despite their most strident attempts to escape. Just eat the cookie, dammit! Who could blame them?
My new travel companion looked to be in his early fifties. He didn’t appear to be especially athletic, and his hair—what little of it still remained—was graying at the edges. He was a few days overdue for a shave, though the peppery stubble was actually quite becoming on him. Despite his unkempt appearance, his eyes still sparkled with a spirited vivacity and he exuded charisma. If George Clooney had a twin, this would be he. The car he drove was an older sedan, and not very well maintained. Several hubcaps were missing, and the paint was scratched and chipping in spots. He may have once aspired to a life of riches, but clearly such ambitions were now of little concern, if they had ever been.
“Do you want to listen to some music?” he asked.
“Sure, that would be nice.”
He turned on the car’s radio. It sounded like an old CD playing, and the speakers distorted the sound, but it was fine. The light beat of the music reverberated melodiously within the car’s interior and then poured out onto the roadway like honey. The tune sounded vaguely familiar, like one of those modern Greek bands playing traditional Greek music, the kind I’d heard as a kid during Greek weddings or at Greek festivals. When I heard the melody seeping out of the car’s aging speakers, a gush of nostalgia washed over me like a warm summer’s rain. My life was so simple and unrestricted when I was a kid, and the rules got even more relaxed once I entered the precinct of the Greek Orthodox Church during such festive occasions, taking on the flavor of the old country. Supervision was eased as though we were on Hellenic soil rather than in downtown LA. As the music blared and the wedding-goers danced and caroused on the warm outside patios, we kids would slip behind the church altar or hide in the pews taking turns sneaking glasses of wine and eating loukoumi, giggling and egging each other on. God pulled on one arm, the devil on the ot
her. “Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable,” Plato opined. Once in a while a priest would catch us and shoo us away, though always laughing more at our juvenile antics than becoming angered. And perhaps reminiscing a bit himself. “Life is trouble,” Zorba the Greek had said. “Only death is not.”
My newfound friend and I moved slowly down the roadway together, I on foot and he puttering along next to me with all the windows rolled down and the sweet sounds of music oozing harmoniously out into the air. A crimson tapestry ignited the faraway skyline, a vivid mosaic of colors before us, the buttery sun melting into the cast-iron horizon, wisps of thin white clouds stretching across the heavens like the feathery streams of a fiery arrow shot by Apollo.
We roved along the road together for a few more songs, the sky continuing to put on a kaleidoscopic light show of dazzling cherry pink, tourmaline, golden-yellow saffron, plush magenta, and fluffy lavender all majestically coalesced against a backdrop of deepening cobalt blue, the roadway ensconced on both sides by a forest of olive and laurel trees with an occasional spruce or cypress jutting skyward, higher than the rest.
As he peered through the car’s dusty windshield at the glittering alpenglow in the distance, his mood seemed to grow increasing melancholy and reflective.
“It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?” I said.
He turned to me slowly, his eyes dreamy and distant. “It sure is.”
“Do you ever wonder where we’re heading?” he asked.
“You mean to Sparta? Hopefully that’s where I’m heading.”
“No, I mean after all this. Where do we go?”
The Greeks had thought about this question since the dawn of antiquity. The great philosophers and theologians had pondered and contemplated the meaning of our existence, divinity, and the afterlife much in the same way our high priests do today. It was yet another reminder that not much had changed in 2,500 years.
The Road to Sparta Page 18