Marathons are modern endurance ordeals named for an event in ancient Greek history. After the Battle of Marathon, a runner named Pheidippides took the news of the allied Greek victory over the invading Persians to Athens and Sparta. He ran about 150 miles in two days, and dropped dead. Cross-country running was a common low-paying job in those days, not a form of athletics, and The Runner of Marathon was famous in antiquity as a patriot who ran himself to death in service of his country. [fact check: Pheidippides was sent to Sparta to summon them to join Athens and Plataia and so was dead while the battle of Marathon was fought. After the battle the Athenians realised that they had only been fighting the Persian infantry, and that the Persian cavalry was aboard ships heading for Athens where traitors would oven the gates for them as they galloped up from the port. The whole 9,000 Athenian infantry ran the 26 miles from Marathon, forming up in front of the city as the Persians disembarked - the frustrated Persians went home. The Athenians did the run in sandals carrying armour and weapons, and they lived on a diet of bread - today's pampered marathon runners get it easy by comparison.]

Marathon running distance was established in 19th Century England, and has nothing to do with any distance in Greece, no matter what Marathon promoters may claim, and Marathons have absolutely no connection to ancient Greek sport. The Greeks, who invented the idea of Sport, reserved the endurance ordeal for livestock trials. Their longest foot race, called the aulion, was less than two miles.

First, we should understand the implications of plebeian. The Plebs were those who were not Patricians. Paticians belonged to families which claimed an ancient noble lineage (and possibly descent from a god or godess). There were often Patrician and Plebeian branches of the same family.

The Plebs were all the rest - they were not simply low class - they included Senators and Equestrians, some of the richest men in Rome as well as the poorest. Patricians could be poor - they constituded the original ruling class, not an economic distinction.

The initial political setup of the Republic after final expulsion of the kings left power in the hands of the Patricians - they filled the magistracies and the Priesthood - the office bearers who controlled the business of the state. The people in general could only vote in the assembly under arms in their centuries called the Centuriate Assembly or in the Tribal Assembly. Both were stacked so that the votes of the upper classes counted more than those of the lower classes.

This control of power was progressively eroded as the Plebs withdrew support at critical times - if the Centuriate Assembly did not vote for war, the state could neither be defended nor could enemy be invaded to steal their land, and so on. As a result, the Patricians reluctantly progressively shared the magistracies with the Plebs.

A further major advance was the establishment of a Plebeian Assembly which gained power by producing its own laws, overcoming reliance on a Senate dominated by Patricians. The institution and election of 10 Tribunes of the Plebs by the Plebeian Assembly put further power in the hands of that Assembly. Tribunes of the Plebs had personal immunity, could veto laws in the Senate, and also introduce laws in the Senate; they became Senators at the end of their term, each year further diluting the Patrician contol of the Senate. This, added to the sharing of magistracies progressively forced on the Patricians - Praetor, then finally Consul, between Patrician and Plebeian candidates, progressed further power to the Plebs, so manipulation by both sides became critical.

The civil wars of the 1st Century BCE brought an end to the Patrician-Plebeian divide. Death in war, and the proscriptions in which victorious sides had opponents killed to seize their property, so wasted the Patricians that they ceased to be a defined power bloc, and it became merely a social honorific. So the Patrician-Plebs conflict ceased to exist. It came down to simple manipulation of the three Assemblies - Centuriate, Tribal and Plebeian.

Augustus' settlement of the constitution after his victory in the civil wars over, first the killers of his adoptive father Julius Caesar, then Mark Antony, rested principally on his assumption of lifetime powers of a Tribune of the Plebs. He didn't take on the office, just the powers, which meant he didn't have to be elected annually. This gave him immunity from prosecution, a veto over laws and the ability to introduce laws. Very clever. And by this move, and gaining personal control of the legions by allocating to himself the provinces which had legions, he was able to eliminate the power of the Centuriate and Plebeian Assemblies. His 'restoration of the Republic' in 27 BCE was in reality elimination of the mechanisms of the Republic, and set the progressive roadmap of imperial control, which culminated by the 3rd Century CE in despotism.