Marathon, Greece Marathon, Greece Marathon (Demotic Greek: Μαραθώνας, "Marathónas"; Attic/Katharevousa: , "Marathṓn") is a town in Greece and the site of the battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, in which the heavily outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians. Legend has it that Pheidippides, a Greek herald at the battle, was sent running from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory, which is how the marathon running race was conceived in modern times. The name "Marathon" () comes from the herb fennel, called "marathon" () or "marathos" () in Ancient Greek, so "Marathon" literally means "a place full of fennels". It is believed
Athens News Agency each by the journalist unions of Athens and Thessaloniki, the publishers' union and the ANA employees. ANA collaborates with the international news agencies Reuters, Agence France-Presse, DPA, ITAR-TASS and a number of national news agencies, as well as the EPA photograph agency. All the ANA services are on-line, with an estimated 350 news items in Greek and 60-70 items in English updated daily. It also publishes an English 'Electronic Daily News Bulletin' containing all the Greek news. The ANA further has four data banks in Greek—news, biographies of Greek and foreign personalities, election results and sports—and a news bank in