Why Does Boston Hold a Marathon on Patriot’s Day?
On the third Monday in April each year, the people of Massachusetts celebrate Patriots' Day with the running of the Boston Marathon. It may seem incongruous to mark the anniversary of the American Revolution with an enormous road race. But the Boston Marathon is actually a near-perfect embodiment of the meaning of Patriots' Day.
. Long before the word meant a road race, it conjured a great of antiquity, an outnumbered Athenian army turning back the might of Persia's empire. To America's founding generations, it was no mere military triumph but a pivotal victory. They saw in Athens the birth of liberty, and in its the of Marathon, the citizen-soldiers of Athens with the militiamen who mustered at Lexington and Concord, facing down an empire in defense of republican liberty.
