The historical achievements of Skyllias and Hydna have been recorded from Herodotus, “The Father of History”, who has praised them for their unique swimming ability and the importance of the information they offered to the Greeks, allowing the Naval Forces to prepare for their upcoming Naval Battles and their eventual triumph. Hence, in this way the first-ever long-distance swim was recorded 2500 years ago, as Herodotus claimed that the two swimmers covered approximately 80 cables or 9 nautical miles.
In honour of the first long-distance swimmers to be recorded, the “The Authentic Marathon Swim” event, will take place at the straits of Artemision on July 2-4, 2021. Hence, the open-water swimming event provides swimmers of the modern era with an opportunity of replicating the historical achievement of Skyllias and Hydna by swimming over the shipwrecks of the historical Artemisium Naval Battle.
13 February 2020