Collection: Aesop's Racers 🐢🐇

Great moments in Long Story history

In 490 BC, during the Greco-Persian wars, the Greeks smacked down the invading Persians at the Battle of Marathon, but before they even had time to get the sand out of their sandals a Greek messenger spotted a Persian ship heading straight toward Athens, presumably to declare victory, or maybe sightseeing, but either way he couldn’t take his chances. So he took off running to deliver the news himself. On the way, he shed everything to run light on his feet. I mean everything — clothing, weapons, fanny pack. The latter contained his beloved fifth edition copy of Aesop's Fables and two strawberry banana energy gels but despite the lack of nutrition he still beat the fake news ship to Athens, yelled "It's not about winning it's how you play the game!" then died, according to some accounts. By other accounts he yelled, "Long story short, we won!", then died. What we do know is that he is no longer living. Yet the legendary first marathoner lives on in poetry and art, such as best painting ever "The Solider of Marathon," 1869, by Luc-Olivier Merson, in which a crowd of Athenians rejoice and/or recoil around the messenger as a woman exclaims "GET THIS MAN SOME SHORTS!" Ladies and gentlemen, these are those shorts.

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀.