Description
Admire the stamina of Pheidippides, said to have run some 149 miles (c. 240 km) from Athens to Sparta in 490 BC to enlist help against Persian forces in the battle of Marathon; this General Post Office (GPO) poster of 1935 used his story for one of a set of educational images commemorating significant moments in the history of communication for display in schools across the nation. It was painted by the artist John Armstrong (1893-1973), who was a son of a clergyman and yet fell into economic hardship following the First World War. He attended the famous London private school St. Paul’s – which is undoubtedly where he first encountered the classical mythology which would continue to haunt his life’s work. His work for the GPO was disseminated in state schools throughout the UK, ostensibly to raise the profile of the Postal Service, one of the biggest employers of the day.
Pheidippides’ mission to Sparta was first recounted by the historian Herodotus; it was much later, however, that he was credited with the foundation of a long-distance race, when the authors Plutarch and Lucian related how he delivered the news of the Athenians’ success at Marathon by running from the site of the battle to the city of Athens, at which point he collapsed and died.
The GPO poster features a stylised image of a Greek vase adorned with the figure of Pheidippides – this one apparently in rude health and not yet showing any sign of fatal exhaustion – carrying news of the famous victory from the hoplite soldiers on the battlefield to their womenfolk back home. Armstrong’s paintings often focused on classical themes, although his subjects were more usually mythical than historical; his other works included several entitled Icarus as well as a Rape of Persephone and a Psyche Crossing the Styx. At a time when schoolrooms generally featured very little in the way of visual adornment, Armstrong’s striking representation of Pheidippides – which was accompanied by images from British postal history showing an 18th-century mail coach, a messenger of the King from 1482, and a 20th-century motorcycle courier – brought a snapshot of the ancient world, with the story of its fleet-footed proto-postman, to schoolchildren of the 1930s.
Encounter by Emma Bridges.
