Marat
JEAN PAUL (mä-rä'), a French revolutionist; born in Baudry, Neufchâtel, Switzerland, May 24, 1744.
After studying medicine in Paris he wrote a work in 1775 which had for its title, "Man, or the Principles and Laws of the Influence of the Soul and the Body on Each Other." When the Revolution began, he supported it, denouncing aristocrats and preaching massacre. He joined Danton's Club of the Cordeliers, and published a daily paper, called "The People's Friend." He was chosen deputy to the National Convention, where his violence and extravagance led to his arrest, but he was acquitted. He was also president of the Jacobin Club. He denounced the generals of the French army as traitors to their country, and put the members of the Convention under arrest.
The fall of the Girondists was a triumph for him and his friends, but it led quickly to his own end. He was killed by Charlotte Corday in Paris July 13, 1793.
MARATHON (mar'a-thon), a village on the E. coast of ancient Attica, 22 miles from Athens, long supposed to be MARBLE the modern Marathona. It stood in a plain 6 miles long and from 3 to 12 miles broad, with a background of mountains in the W., and a marsh both on the N. and S.; it reached the sea-"The mountains look on Marathon, and Marathon looks on the sea." Investigations by Prussian officers identify the historic miles to the S., and locate the battle in village with that of Brana, nearly 22 the plain between the mountain Stavrokoraki and the sea, nearly 3 miles N. E. of Brana. The name of Marathon is gloriously memorable as the scene of the great defeat of the Persian hordes of Darius by the Greeks under Miltiades (490 в. c.) -one of the decisive battles of the world.