Stamata Revithi inspiration from Pheidippides, who, according to legend, ran the distance from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia at the Battle of Marathon, and died immediately after giving his message. En route to Athens, Revithi encountered a male runner along the road. He gave her money and advised her to run the marathon to become famous, and, consequently, earn money or more easily find a job. After this discussion Revithi decided to run the race: she had enjoyed long-distance running as a child, and believed she could beat the male competitors. The 1896 Olympic Games were the
Optative (Ancient Greek) Optative (Ancient Greek) The optative mood ( or ; Ancient Greek , , "[inflection] for wishing", Latin "[mode] for wishing") is a grammatical mood of the Ancient Greek verb, named for its use as a way to express wishes. The optative mood in Greek is found in four different tenses (present, aorist, perfect and future) and in all three voices (active, middle and passive). It has five main uses: Together, the optative and the subjunctive cover most of the areas for which the Latin subjunctive is used; however, for counterfactual situations in the present or the past ("it would be