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The Battle of Plataea— August, 479 BCE
by Jon Edward Martin
The invasion that began as a punitive attack by Persia against a collection of
disunited cities ended in one of the most critical battles ever fought on
European soil. North of Athens, on the far side of a mountain range that
separated Attica from Boeotia, the contest would be decided. Here the Greek
style of decisive, heavy infantry combat, which for the most part had only been
seen during the internecine wars amongst the Greeks, would be put to the test
in the fields outside of the town of Plataea by the richest and most powerful
empire in the world.
At Marathon, in 490 BCE, massed formations of armored Greek infantry defeated a
Persian army designed for warfare on the open plains of Asia. Ten years later,
at the pass of Thermopylae, the Persians under King Xerxes triumphed, but it
was a victory achieved by sheer weight of numbers. Even without the treachery
of Ephialtes—the Greek who showed Xerxes' Immortals a "backdoor" route around
the Greek position, the 7,000 Greeks, led by 300 Spartans, would eventually
have succumbed to the invasion force of over a quarter million. A month later,
the naval engagement in the straits of Salamis halted the Persian advance
westward, but left Athens and the larger portion of Greece in enemy hands.
During the following autumn, winter and spring. the Persian invasion force
ebbed and flowed with the seasons, in search of provender, eventually settling
around the city of Thebes. Out of sheer necessity Thebes and the other cities
of central and northern Greece had come to terms with Xerxes, supporting his
army with both supplies and men. In fact Thebes and Athens had been at odds
before, so it took little prodding by the Persians to obtain the commitment of
Theban arms in the conflict.
Greek Forces
The Greek army, according to Herodotus, totaled around 30,000 hoplites with
double that number of light troops. 5,000 Spartiates took part in the battle,
while the Athenians provided 8,000 heavy infantry. The remaining units were
comprising mostly from other city-states of the Peloponnese. The Greek numbers
he details, unlike the Persian counts, appear to be likely. This entire force
was under the command of the Spartan regent Pausanias.
The Spartans or Spartiates, arguably the finest infantryman of any era, formed
the core of the Greek forces. Their martial training began at age seven, when
they were taken from their homes and placed in "herds", barracked as soldiers
and toughened both physically and mentally. This military schooling was dubbed
the Agoge or Upbringing. At the end of adolescence, and as a requirement of
"graduation", each prospective Spartiate was sent off for almost an entire year
to endure the wilds of Lakonia, to live alone and apart from society, utilizing
all the skills acquired in the Agoge to survive. To complete the initiation to
full Spartan citizenship, each young man must then be admitted to a phidition
or dining-mess of fifteen warriors. Here and amongst his mess-mates he would
spend most of his time when not engaged in war or training. The Spartans,
through their dominance of the Peloponnesian peninsula, proved instrumental in
ensuring the participation of the remaining free Greeks.
The Athenian warriors, and for that matter the other Greek allies, were
part-time militia, their training beginning late by Spartan standards; they
enrolled as epheboi at eighteen, and by the time they reached their twentieth
birthday compulsory military training was complete.
By the Archaic period infantry combat in the Greek world had evolved from the
individual duels of aristocrats and tribal leaders described by Homer, to the
densely packed hoplite formation. Typically files of eight men deep, with
shields overlapping shields, advanced under the weight of seventy pounds of
armor and weapons. Young, strong warriors were positioned in the front ranks,
the less sure in the middle, while the rear rankers were made up of grizzled
old veterans who ensured that no desertions took place once the battle
commenced. The ones behind would often push the men in front with the bowls of
their shields, while the front-rankers thrust and hacked with eight-foot spears
or their back up weapon, the two foot long hoplite sword. This mode of fighting
proved effective as long as every man stood his ground, covering both him and
the man to his left with his large, round shield. The shield itself was large
and heavy, often a meter in diameter and approaching twenty pounds in weight;
it was fashioned from oak planks fitted and shaped like a large bowl with a rim
of several inches and held by the hoplite by a central arm band through which
he slid his forearm, and gripped by a handle just inside the rim. The entire
wooden core could be either bare, covered with leather, or faced with a thin
sheet of bronze. The remainder of the panoply, or outfit, consisted of either a
bronze breastplate of thirty pounds or a laminated linen or leather corselet,
bronze helmet, and bronze greaves. This panoply would vary in completeness
based on the relative affluence of the hoplite. It is not hard to imagine what
a burden this would have placed on a 140 pound man in the heat of a Greek
summer!
Persian Forces
Herodotus places the total number of forces under the command of the Persian
general Mardonios at 300,000. This, like all his tallies of enemy contingents,
seems inflated. Peter Green in his book, The Greco-Persian Wars, speculates the
Persian force to be roughly equivalent to the Greeks. Peter Connolly, author of
Greece and Rome at War, conjectures, based on the reported size of Mardonios'
stockade, that the force could have been as large as 120,000.
The Persian army, and the conscripts of the subject nations, were built for
speed and maneuverability. The bow, short lance, and dagger-like sword
(akinakes) filled out the weapons available to the Persian infantryman. The
elite units, such as the Immortals, may have had scaled armor corselets, but
their shields would have been constructed of leather covered wicker-work, and
helmets, if worn at all, would have resembled elegant bronze funnels that sat
atop their heads.
Deployment
The allied Greek forces assembled at the sanctuary of Eleusis before moving
north and over the mountains, taking the main Thebes Road through the
Eleutherai Pass, by-passing the closer Dryocephalai Road, which descends from
Mount Kithairon near the town of Plataea. As they descended to the foothills
lead elements, most likely light troops (euzonoi), would have seen an immense
stockade erected by the Persians on the far bank of the Aisopos River, looming
near a bridge. The invaders' frontlines would have stretched for several miles,
mimicking the course of the river. Since no attempt was made by the Persians to
hold the mountain passes, we can conjecture that Pausanias sent light troops
ahead, maybe by days, to secure these passes. Pausanias brought his forces to
the lower slopes of the mountain range near the village of Hysiai, his Spartans
moving east of the road to Erythrai, the Athenians west toward Plataea and the
Peloponnesians and other troops taking up the center. Positioned on the open
and level ground near the road the Megarians would be the first to see action.
Day One
Mardonios, from his frontlines on the Aisopos, sighted the Greeks and
particularly the Megarians in their vulnerable spot along the road.
Immediately, he ordered his elite cavalry, captained by the Persian Masistios,
to attack. The swarming horsemen launched a punishing missile assault that
pushed the Megarians to the edge of withdrawal. Their pleas for help were
answered by a contingent of Athenian bowmen. In the action that followed
Masistios was killed and the Persians withdrew to their side of the Aisopos.
Both sides licked their wounds. The Greeks held fast to this line, awaiting
another Persian attack, but when this failed to materialize Pausanias moved
along the lower slopes, just off the plain, toward the west and Plataea.
Day Two - Day Seven
As the Greeks redeployed to the west, Herodotus relates a dispute between the
Tegeans and the Athenians for the second place of honor on the left flank.
After a debate the Athenians won out, retelling of their victory at Marathon
and their leading naval role at Salamis. They took up position atop Pyrgos
Hill, the Spartans on the right of the Aisopos Ridge, while the remaining Greek
allies filled the center. Mardonios, whose line overlapped the Greeks at both
flanks shifted westward also, his Persians on the north side of the river
facing the Spartans, Artabazos with his Baktrians and Medes facing the Greek
center, and on the far flank across the river from the Athenians, the Medizing
Greeks fashioned their lines. During the next several days sacrifices were made
to the gods, the omens interpreted, and the answer for both armies cautioned
about advancing across the Aisopos River. All the while the ranks of the Allied
Greeks swelled as more troops wended their way over Kithairon.
Day Eight
Frustrated by the Greeks reluctance to engage, Mardonios ordered a cavalry
detachment to swing around behind the Greeks and attack their supply lines.
Wagons and carts would have to cross the flat plain between the foothills and
the Aisopos ridge. By nightfall hundreds of provender wagons had been either
burned or captured.
Day Nine - Day Eleven
Deprived of supplies, Pausanias still clung to the ridge and his superior
defensive position. Each day Mardonios unleashed his cavalry units, which rode
to within missile range of the Greek frontline, launching barrage upon barrage
into the static files of hoplites. Each day the Greeks endured these attacks
and stood fast upon the high ground.
Day Twelve
With the passing of every day Mardonios knew the Greeks facing him across the
river grew in numbers. Although his cavalry raids did indeed cut the enemy's
supply lines, reinforcements continued to trickle to Pausanias by way of the
Dryocephalai Road. At this time Herodotus inserted two incidents into his
narrative, apparently for dramatic effect. Firstly Mardonios dispatched a
herald to personally issue a challenge to Pausanias—send out a number of
Spartans and he, Mardonios would march out with an equal number of Persians.
The victors would determine the fate of both armies. The second is even less
probable and must be attributed to the hazy memory of one of the Athenian
veterans he interviewed many years after the battle. Suddenly Pausanias decided
to switch positions with the Athenians—to place them against the Persians,
which they had beaten ten years earlier at Marathon, leaving the Spartans to
face the Medizing Greeks, enemies with which they would have been very
familiar. It seems very unlikely that any sensible general would attempt such a
move in the face of daily cavalry attacks, and it is on the whole unlikely in
an age when the position of honor (the right flank) would have, by reputation
and expectation, fallen to the Spartans.
Again Mardonios ordered his raids, but this time with the purpose of spoiling
the Greeks' main water supply at the Springs of Gargaphia. By some method, the
details of which have not come down to us through Herodotus, the Persians
succeeded in destroying the spring. This final raid, or the prospect of losing
more wagons in the plain between Plataea and his position on the ridge,
compelled Pausanias to act. That night, under cover of darkness, he would move
the army back toward Plataea, obtain water and secure his supply lines once
again.
Day Thirteen - Final Attack
Again Herodotus spices up the story: Pausanias calls a meeting of commanders to
dispense orders for the withdrawal, but one of his own Spartan polemarchs,
Amompharetos, refuses to retreat in the face of the enemy. He raises a large
boulder, like a voting pebble, and casts his ballot to hold the ridge. Again,
an unlikely story—Athenians, not Spartans voted using pebbles; Spartans cast
their ballots by shouting! This argument is the supposed reason for the delay
of the Spartan, Lakonian and Tegean contingents from leaving the ridge until
daylight. Pausanias orders the retreat of the remainder of his Spartans and the
other allies, hoping that his departure will compel Amompharetos to withdraw.
More likely, as Ernle Bradford surmised in his book, Thermopylae:the Battle for
the West, this entire event was a carefully planned rearguard action, the bait
needed to lure Mardonios across the Aisopos River.
As day broke, Persian pickets sounded the alarm at the sight of the empty
ridges to the south. Mardonios, encouraged by the news, and thinking he could
catch the Greeks in a panicked retreat, ordered a full attack. By the time the
Persians crossed the Aisopos and rolled over and around the ridge line, the
Spartans, Greek center, and Athenian contingents became dangerously separated
into three distinct formations, unable to offer assistance to each other.
The Spartans formed up quickly onto a piece of ground with a slight rise,
offering them limited protection from cavalry, and having walked the
battlefield recently, I can attest to the fact that even the level ground
(outside of the tilled fields) is hardly level, for it is pocked and potholed,
and strewn with boulders and clumps of grass. In low light conditions it would
most likely be a dangerous place for horses to traverse. Here the Spartans,
Lakonians, and Tegeans locked their shields and waited as Persian bowmen
planted their shields at bow range and launched a torrent of arrows. Meanwhile
the Corinthians and other Peloponnesians who comprised the Greek center fell
back to the town of Plataea. In the plain between the town and Pyrgos Hill, the
Athenians were overtaken by the Theban army. The fighting continued throughout
the morning, the Spartans hunkering down, the Athenians in a hoplite battle,
and the Greek center disconnected and waiting while more and more Persians
streamed from their positions on the river toward the Spartans, Lakonians and
Tegeans. Finally the Tegeans moved, inducing the Spartans to attack also. This
long delay of the Spartans Herodotus attributes to unfavorable omens as
Pausanias performed sacrifice after sacrifice. While it was true that no
Spartan commander would initiate an attack without the gods' consent, Mardonios
had struck first, relieving Pausanias of any such concern. It is more likely
that he stalled his attack until the weight of the Persian reinforcements
pressing forward provided a dense and immobile target.
According to Herodotus, "First there was a struggle at the barricade of
shields; then the barricade down, there was a bitter and protracted fight, hand
to hand... for the Persians would grab hold of the Spartan spears and break
them; in courage and strength they were as good as their adversaries, but they
were deficient in armor, untrained and greatly inferior in skill. Sometimes
singly, sometimes in groups of ten—perhaps fewer, perhaps more, they fell upon
the Spartan line and were cut down."
But still the contest was in doubt. The Persian mounted troops, under personal
command of Mardonios, began to push the Spartans back, and the battle might
have been won by the Persians but for the strong arm of a Spartan soldier. With
the toss of a stone, Mardonios was unhorsed. Without their leader the Persian
formation began to lose its cohesiveness; the Spartans heaved forward. The
troops who made up the Greek center advanced on the run at the sight of the
Persians reeling under the Spartan surge. Artabazos, seeing this also,
retreated hastily with 40,000 troops, men who never had to unsheathe their
swords!
The Greeks moved north relentlessly, crossed the river and closed on the
Persian stockade. The Tegeans were the first to breach the fort and enter. By
the time the battle ended less than 3,000 of Mardonios' troops survived.
Herodotus counts the Greek dead as follows: 91 Spartans; 16 Tegeans; 52
Athenians; 600 Megarians, Corinthians and Phliasians combined.
Aftermath
As with all Greek battles, the loot was collected, trophies erected and funeral
rites performed for the dead. Unluckly Thebes, the city that had thrown in with
the Persians, held out for several weeks before finally surrendering. At the
same time as this battle, the allied Greek fleet had defeated a Persian naval
contingent that had landed at Mykale. These victories secured the Greek
mainland from Persian invasion, but the war against Xerxes and his empire would
go on for years.
Plataea today. The ruins in the foreground are of the ancient town. In the
distance to the left is Pyrgos Hill, the position the Athenians held on the
flank. The Spartan position would be just out of the frame to the right,
following the low ridge. The flat plain just beyond the town is where the
Boeotians and other Medizing Greeks engaged the Athenians on the last morning.
Bibliography
Diodorus Siculus Book XI , translated by C.H. Oldfather Harvard
University Press 1989
Herodotus— The Histories , translated by Aubrey De Selincourt Penguin
Classics 1972
The Greco-Persian Wars , by Peter Green University of California Press
1996
Greece and Rome at War , by Peter Connolly Prentice-Hall 1981
Pausanias—Descriptions of Greece , translated by W.H.S. Jones Harvard
University Press 1964
Persia and the Greeks , by A.R. Burn Minerva Press 1962
Plutarch's Lives—Aristides , Dryden translation revised by Arthur Hugh
Clough Random House 1992
Sparta , by H. Michell Cambridge University Press 1964
The Spartan Army , by Nicholas Sekunda Osprey Publishing 1998
Thermopylae:The Battle for the West , by Ernle Bradford Da Capo Press
1993
Studies in Ancient Greek Topography —Part III, by W.K. Pritchett
University of California Press 1980
Warfare in Antiquity , by Hans Delbruk University of Nebrask Press
1990
Warfare in Ancient Greece , by Pierre Ducrey—translated by Janet Lloyd
Schocken Books 1986
Warfare in the Classical World , by John Warry University of Oklahoma
Press 1980
The Western Way of War , by Victor Davis Hanson Alfred A. Knopf 1989
Writeen by Jon Edward Martin 
Jonjay15@aol.com
Copyright © 2004 by Jon Edward Martin.
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