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
Plague of Athens which were fabricated in the same decade. Never again in antiquity was ivory used on such a large scale. A second ancient narrative suggesting hemorrhagic fever etiology is that of Titus Lucretius Carus. Writing in the 1st century B.C., Lucretius characterized the Athenian plague as having "bloody" or black discharges from bodily orifices. Lucretius cited and was an admirer of scientific predecessors in Greek Sicily Empedocles and Acron. While none of the original works of Acron, a physician, are extant, it is reported that he died ca. 430 B.C. after travel to Athens to combat the plague. Unfortunately DNA sequence-based