The first recorded account showing a courier running from Marathon to Athens to announce victory is from within Lucian's prose on the first use of the word Joy as a greeting in A Slip of the tongue in Greeting.[2]
... Philippides, the one who acted as courier, is said to have used it first in our sense when he brought the news of victory from Marathon and addressed the magistrates in seesion when they were anxious how the battle had ended ; "Joy to you, we've won" he said, and there and then he died, breathing his last breath with the words "Joy to you". – Lucian translated by K.Kilburn.[3]