Greetings future citizen,

                  This may be strange, but the Gods have informed me to write this before my passing and to get this sent to you. So, your question is how has delivering messages progressed since the ancient 'Greece' and what are the differences between then and delivering messages to the society we are in now? One thing I can make certain is that I did not have to run all the way from Athens to Tucson to tell you this. I am very grateful for the advances made in the future.

In the primary source “Herodotus Book VI: Chapter 94-140,” it states, “And first, while they were yet in the city, the generals sent as a herald to Sparta Pheidippides, an Athenian, and one, moreover, that was a runner of long distances and made that his calling,” (Herodotus Book VI: Chapter 94-140, 105). In this quote, the book is explaining that I, Pheidippides, felt honored and that it would be best if I were sent as the messenger for Athens to run to Sparta and deliver the message about the war. In comparison to the society you are in, no one usually sees somebody running across a country or across different states to deliver an important message about a war. Normally, messages like those are delivered on the news or can simply be seen on social media; however, some people can still deliver important messages by foot if the distances are short. For example, if somebody needed help with getting their car starting to run again, or quickly shut off a pipe burst, they can quickly run to their neighbors and see if they were to help. The difference between myself and the example of someone running to their neighbor is that I had to run long-distance while the neighbor only had to run around 100 feet from their house.

In the secondary source “Herodotos and Hemerodromoi: Pheidippides' Run from Athens to Sparta in 490 BC from Historical and Physiological Perspectives,” the author writes, “This is an enormous amount of energy to take in on the go; and coordinating the energy intake so that it interfered as little as possible with the ability to run must have been a real challenge,” (Christensen 163). In this quote, the authors surprisingly predicted the amount of time I ran and the amount of energy intake I had to take in order to be able to run from Athens to Sparta, and back to Athens again. I am very surprised they calculated this even though they were not physically there with me. In the other secondary source “Run, Pheidippides, Run! The story of the Battle of Marathon,” the author believes and comes to a conclusion, similar to what the authors had for the first secondary source, that it is nearly impossible for myself to run to long of a distance in the short amount of time he ran for (Grogan 189). Inferring that the Athenian officials must have considered how much I had to run in order for me to die right when I arrived back in Athens, this must have pushed the Athenians to come up with better ways to deliver messages and constantly advance how they do it which leads to the conclusion that my death contributes to how advanced the messaging technology is today.

            I hope this gives you and your fellow peers a better understanding of the ancient world by knowing how important messages were delivered, and how they have increased their technology of delivering messages in order to prevent people from dying right after delivering the message like I unfortunately did. This should give you enough insight on why they decided to change their ways in delivering messages. Understanding ancient ‘Greece’'s ways of advancing messaging would better understand human experience in general by understanding why technology is still currently advancing when delivering messages to friends, family, etc. If you have any more questions, you're going to have to run 150 miles in two days in order to summon me so that I can answer them.

May the Gods be with You,

Pheidippides