Battle of PlataeaGreek history [479 BC]
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account by Thucydides
( in Thucydides: Authority of his work )
...almost creating the language as he writes, the moral and political effects of civil strife within a state in time of war. By a different method, in speeches, he portrays the hard fate of the town of Plataea due to the long-embittered envy and cruelty of Thebes and the faithlessness of Sparta, and the harsh brutality of Cleon when he proposed to execute all the men of the Aegean island city of...
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defeat of Xerxes I
( in Xerxes I: War against the Greeks )
...he had initiated turned into a defeat. Without a fleet to bring supplies to the army, he had to retreat; he crossed over into Asia, leaving Mardonius in Thessaly. During an indecisive battle near Plataea, on Aug. 27, 479, Mardonius was killed, and his death obliged the army of occupation to withdraw. Hostilities continued for 13 years, but thenceforth Xerxes involved himself only slightly.
effect on
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Athenian reconstruction
( in Athens: Athens at its zenith )
...that served as the headquarters of the executive committee of the council, was also built at this time. Lack of attention to the Acropolis was partly the result of the oath, sworn before the Battle of Plataea in 479 bc, that sanctuaries destroyed by the barbarians would not be rebuilt but left as memorials of their impiety. In 449 bc, however, peace with Persia was at last officially...
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Persian invasion of Greece ( in Greco-Persian Wars
)
Although Xerxes returned to Persia that winter, his army remained in Greece. It was finally driven from the country after the battle of Plataea in 479 bc, where it was defeated by a combined force of Spartans, Tegeans, and Athenians. The Persian navy was defeated at Mycale, on the Asiatic coast, when it declined to engage the Greek fleet. Instead the Persian navy beached its ships and,...
in Iran, ancient: Xerxes I )...away from Asia rather long for a king with such widespread responsibilities, returned home and left Mardonius in charge of further operations. The real end of the invasion came with the Battle of Plataea, the fall of Thebes (a stronghold of pro-Persian forces), and the Persian naval loss at Mycale in 479. Of the three, the Persian loss at Plataea was perhaps the most decisive. Up until...
Citations
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ancient city of Boeotia, Greece. It was situated on a triangular ledge 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, on the northern side of Mount Cithaeron below the modern village of Plataiaí. It was well positioned in time of war to threaten the main road from Thebes to the Isthmus of Corinth, which passed east of Plataea over Mount Cithaeron. Plataea was settled by Boeotians who expelled the earlier Bronze Age inhabitants. When Thebes pressed Plataea to join a league of Boeotian cities formed in the 6th century bc, the Plataeans refused and engaged Athens (519) to protect them. Then, when the Persians landed in Attica in 490, the full Plataean levy, numbering about 1,000 men, came to the aid of Athens and fought at Marathon. In 479, Greek forces under Pausanias defeated the invading Persian army of Mardonius on the slopes of Cithaeron below Plataea, decisively crushing Persian ambitions on the Greek mainland. Thereafter the Plataeans offered sacrifice annually to Zeus the Liberator in honour of the Greek dead, and Plataea was declared inviolable by Pausanias. Nonetheless, the city was attacked by Thebans (431), then by Spartans (429), who finally razed it in 427. Thebes occupied the site until 387, then destroyed it again in 373. Athens harboured the survivors until the Macedonian kings Philip II and Alexander III the Great rebuilt Plataea after 338 as a symbol of Greek courage in resisting Persia.
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history of ancient Greece ancient Greek civilization
Xerxes returned home, but the Persian general Mardonius remained for a final encounter with the Greeks at Plataea. The Spartans under Pausanias, regent for the underage Spartan king, advanced from the Peloponnese via the Isthmus and Eleusis; there had once been a question of making a stand at the Isthmus for the defense of the Peloponnese, but Salamis had made that unnecessary....
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account by Thucydides Thucydides
...almost creating the language as he writes, the moral and political effects of civil strife within a state in time of war. By a different method, in speeches, he portrays the hard fate of the town of Plataea due to the long-embittered envy and cruelty of Thebes and the faithlessness of Sparta, and the harsh brutality of Cleon when he proposed to execute all the men of the Aegean island city of...
-
defeat of Xerxes I Xerxes I
...he had initiated turned into a defeat. Without a fleet to bring supplies to the army, he had to retreat; he crossed over into Asia, leaving Mardonius in Thessaly. During an indecisive battle near Plataea, on Aug. 27, 479, Mardonius was killed, and his death obliged the army of occupation to withdraw. Hostilities continued for 13 years, but thenceforth Xerxes involved himself only slightly.
effect on
-
Athenian reconstruction Athens
...that served as the headquarters of the executive committee of the council, was also built at this time. Lack of attention to the Acropolis was partly the result of the oath, sworn before the Battle of Plataea in 479 bc, that sanctuaries destroyed by the barbarians would not be rebuilt but left as memorials of their impiety. In 449 bc, however, peace with Persia was at last officially...
-
Persian invasion of Greece ( in Greco-Persian Wars
)
Although Xerxes returned to Persia that winter, his army remained in Greece. It was finally driven from the country after the battle of Plataea in 479 bc, where it was defeated by a combined force of Spartans, Tegeans, and Athenians. The Persian navy was defeated at Mycale, on the Asiatic coast, when it declined to engage the Greek fleet. Instead the Persian navy beached its ships and,...
in Iran, ancient: Xerxes I )...away from Asia rather long for a king...
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Greece ancient Greek civilization
After the residue of the Persian fleet had been defeated at Mycale, on the eastern side of the Aegean, the Greeks were saved—for the moment. The Persians had, after all, returned to Greece after the small-scale humiliation of Marathon in 490; thus there could be no immediate certainty that they would abandon their plans to conquer Greece after the far greater humiliations of 480 and 479....
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Iran Iran, ancient
...left Mardonius in charge of further operations. The real end of the invasion came with the Battle of Plataea, the fall of Thebes (a stronghold of pro-Persian forces), and the Persian naval loss at Mycale in 479. Of the three, the Persian loss at Plataea was perhaps the most decisive. Up until Mardonius was killed, the issue of the battle was probably still in doubt, but, once leaderless, the...
Achaemenid general, a nephew of King Darius I and married to Darius’ daughter Artazostra. In 492 bc he was sent to succeed the satrap (governor) Artaphernes in Ionia, with a special commission to attack Athens and Eretria. Contrary to the usual Achaemenid policy, he abolished the ruling “tyrants” and restored democracies in Ionia, thereby removing a major source of unrest. He then crossed the Hellespont and invaded Thrace and Macedonia. His fleet was wrecked off Mt. Athos with enormous loss, however, and because of this setback he was deprived of his command.
According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Mardonius was one of those who encouraged King Xerxes I, Darius’ successor, to invade Greece. After the Achaemenid defeat at Salamis he persuaded Xerxes to return to Asia and himself stayed behind with a large army. He unsuccessfully attempted to separate Athens from the other Greek allies, and, withdrawing from Attica, he finally was defeated and killed in battle at Plataea in September 479.
association with
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Darius I the Great Darius I
...ships to explore the Greek coasts, but he took no military action until 499 bc, when Athens and Eretria supported an Ionian revolt against Persian rule. After the suppression of this rebellion, Mardonius, Darius’ son-in-law, was given charge of an expedition against Athens and Eretria, but the loss of his fleet in a storm off Mount Athos (492 bc) forced him to abandon the operation. In...
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Xerxes I Xerxes I
...the empire reestablished, Xerxes would willingly have devoted himself to peaceful activities. But many of those around him were pressing for the renewal of hostilities. His cousin and brother-in-law Mardonius, supported by a strong party of exiled Greeks, incited him to take revenge for the...
Persian king (486–465 bc), the son and successor of Darius I. He is best known for his massive invasion of Greece from across the Hellespont (480 bc), a campaign marked by the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. His ultimate defeat spelled the beginning of the decline of the Achaemenid Empire.
Xerxes was the son of Darius I and Atossa, daughter of Cyrus; he was the first son born to Darius after his accession to the throne. Xerxes was designated heir apparent by his father in preference to his elder brother Artabazanes. A bas-relief on the southern portico of a courtyard in the treasury of Persepolis, as well as the bas-reliefs on the east door of the tripylon (an ornamental stairway) depict him as the heir apparent, standing behind his father, who is seated on the throne. When his father died, in 486 bc, Xerxes was about 35 years old and had already governed Babylonia for a dozen years.
One of his first concerns upon his accession was to pacify Egypt, where a usurper had been governing for two years. But he was forced to use much stronger methods than had Darius: in 484 bc he ravaged the Delta and chastised the Egyptians. Xerxes then learned of the revolt of Babylon, where two nationalist pretenders had appeared in swift succession. The second, Shamash-eriba, was conquered by Xerxes’ son-in-law, and violent repression ensued: Babylon’s fortresses were torn down, its temples pillaged, and the statue of Marduk destroyed; this latter act had great political significance: Xerxes was no longer able to “take the hand of” (receive the patronage of) the Babylonian god. Whereas Darius had treated Egypt and Babylonia as kingdoms personally united to the Persian...
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