Battle of Plataea

The Greek victory over Persia at Plataea (pleh-TEE-uh) freed Greece from the threat of subjugation to Persia.

Date: Late summer, 479 b. c.e.

Category: Wars and battles

Locale: Plataea, in Boeotia southwest of Thebes

Summary In 480 b. c.e., the Persians invaded Greece, destroyed an advance Spartan force at Thermopylae, and sacked Athens. After the Greek fleet defeated the Persians at Salamis, the Persian king Xerxes I retreated, leaving a sizable Persian army in Greece under Mardonius.

In 479 b. c.e., the Persians sacked Athens again and took up a position in Boeotia. The Greeks, commanded by the Spartan regent Pausanias, marched north from Corinth to meet them. The Spartans held the Greek right wing

The Persians (left) begin to fall against the Greeks, who would ultimately be triumphant. (F. R. Niglutsch)

And the Athenians the left. An initial engagement was indecisive, and for several days, both sides remained idle. When the Persians cut Greek supply lines and polluted their drinking water, Pausanias ordered a nighttime retreat to safer ground.

The Greek withdrawal was not completed by dawn, and the Persians attacked. The Spartans bore the brunt of the Persian assault, but their superior weaponry and discipline overwhelmed the more lightly armed Persians. When Mardonius was killed, the Persians lost heart and fled.

Significance Although the war with Persia continued, the Persians never again threatened mainland Greece. In 478 b. c.e., Greek forces crossed the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor and under Athenian leadership fought to free the eastern Greeks from Persian control.

Further Reading

De Souza, Philip. The Greek and Persian Wars, 499-386B. C. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Green, Peter. The Greco-Persian Wars. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Herodotus. Histories: Book IX. Edited by Michael A. Flower and John Marincola. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Lazenby, J. F. The Defence of Greece, 490-479 B. C. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1993.

James P. Sickinger

See also: Greco-Persian Wars; Pausanias of Sparta; Salamis, Battle of; Thermopylae, Battle of; Xerxes I.