Runner (soldier) Runner (soldier) A runner was a military courier, a foot soldier responsible for carrying messages during war. Runners were very important to military communications, before telecommunications became commonplace. The Ancient Greek semi-historical character of Pheidippides is said to have been the runner bringing the news of the Greek victory over the Persians from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC. Even though field telephones were widely used for the first time during World War I (1914–18), they relied on copper wire lines, which were often damaged or unreliable. Radio technology existed, but was generally regarded as too insecure for frontline use.
Greek contributions to Islamic world scholarship throughout the Hellenistic world, and Greek mathematics merged with Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics to give rise to a Hellenistic mathematics. The most important centre of learning during this period was Alexandria in Egypt, which attracted scholars from across the Hellenistic world, mostly Greek and Egyptian, but also Jewish, Persian, Phoenician scholars. Most of the mathematical texts written in Greek have been found in Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Sicily. Byzantine science was essentially classical science. Therefore, Byzantine science was in every period closely connected with ancient-pagan philosophy, and metaphysics. Despite some opposition to pagan learning, many of the