Battle of Plataea

“ The ten generals commanded their army in rotation, each for one day; but they now agreed to surrender to Miltiades their days of command, in order to invest the whole power in a single person. While the Athenians were preparing for battle, they received unexpected assistance from the little town or Plataea, in Boeotia. Grateful to the Athenians for the assistance which they had rendered them against the Thebans, the whole force of Plataea, amounting to 1000 heavy-armed men, marched to the assistance of their allies and joined them at Marathon. ”

“ This pang is bitterest of all, for men to know much and to have power over naught.’”
298The battle of Platæa occurred because Mardonius, the general of Xerxes, undertook to oppose the Spartan Pausanias, commander of the Greek allies, as he was making his way from the south, over the passes of Cithæron, to attack disloyal Thebes. The Platæans, true to the patriotism they had displayed at Marathon and Artemisium, joined the Greeks. ”

“ Next year (B.C. 479) the fighting was on land, and the result of the invasion was settled by the great battle of Plataea. Early in the spring Mardonius, who had wintered in Thessaly, marched south and again occupied Athens. But he found the country ill-suited for cavalry, in which his chief strength lay ”

“ In the last battle on the mound the Greeks were not cut down, but buried beneath a shower of missiles.
Platæa affords three very remarkable examples of the contrast of tactics. It was a battle of mistakes, in which each side conspicuously failed to play its own game. At the first position of the Greeks the Persian threw away his excellent cavalry in an attack on a necessarily limited portion of the front of the unshaken Greek heavy infantry, where outflanking was impossible, and only close fighting could be really effective. ”

“ Meanwhile the Grecian army continued to receive reinforcements from the different states, and by the time it reached Boeotia, it formed a grand total of about 110,000 men. After several days' manoeuvring a general battle took place near Plataea. The light-armed undisciplined Persians, whose bodies were unprotected by armour, maintained a very unequal combat against the serried ranks, the long spears, and the mailed bodies of the Spartan phalanx. ”

“ Thus Plataea nominally became a second Elis—its battle-field another Altis. Aristides, at the same time, sought to enforce the large and thoughtful policy commenced by Themistocles. He endeavoured to draw the jealous states of Greece into a common and perpetual league, maintained against all invaders by a standing force of one thousand cavalry, one hundred ships, and ten thousand heavy-armed infantry. ”

“ Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in invading the Plataean territory, you do what is wrong in itself, and worthy neither of yourselves nor of the fathers who begot you. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, your countryman, after freeing Hellas from the Medes with the help of those Hellenes who were willing to undertake the risk of the battle fought near our city, offered sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator in the marketplace of Plataea, and calling all the allies together restored to the Plataeans their city and territory, and declared it independent and inviolate against aggression or conquest. ”

“ And that feeling of strength always makes a people that can feel it actually stronger. It helped to make their greatness. The result of the battle at Platæa had been very doubtful in the midst of the fight. The Greeks had been saved only by the steadfast courage of the Spartans. But its conclusion was decisive. Persia was a real danger to Greece no more. On the contrary, it is Greece that we now find carrying the war into Asia Minor and freeing those Ionian coast cities from the yoke of Persia. Perpetual jealousies between the states still prevented Greece from extending her power far. ”

“ The battle which ensued was fought on land, not at sea. The Persian admirals distrusted their power to fight the Greek fleet. They had therefore dragged their ships on shore at Mykale and entrenched a kind of naval camp. Accordingly the Greeks also disembarked, and the battle which ensued had many features in common with that at Plataea, which according to tradition took place on the same day. ”

“ A curious story is told by Herodotus in regard to this battle. On the morning of the day a herald's staff was washed on shore, and a report spread of the victory gained at Plataea. Whether historians are mistaken in placing the battles on the same day, or whether (as later writers assume) the Greek generals deliberately spread the report to encourage their men, we cannot tell. In times of excitement such rumours will spread among men. Whatever their origin, their effect is often decisive, and the Greeks naturally attributed them to divine influence. ”

“ And here Pausanias declared that the territory on which the battle was fought should forever be sacred ground to all of Grecian birth. Forever is seldom a very long period in human history. In this case it lasted just fifty years.
War had broken out between Sparta and its allies and Athens and its dominion, and all Greece was in turmoil. Of the two leading cities of Bœotia, Thebes was an ally of the Lacedæmonians, Platæa of the Athenians. The war broke out by an attack of the Thebans upon Platæa. ”

“ The Platæans were naturally attached to the interest of the Athenians, and they furnished them with 1000 soldiers when Greece was attacked by Datis the general of Darius. Platæa was taken by the Thebans, after a famous siege, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, and destroyed by the Spartans, B.C. 427. Alexander rebuilt it, and paid great encomiums to the inhabitants, on account of their ancestors, who had so bravely fought against the Persians at the battle of Marathon, and under Pausanias. Herodotus, bk. ”

“ The united Greeks (some one hundred thousand men from a dozen different cities) attacked the three hundred thousand men of the enemy near Plataea. Once more the heavy Greek infantry broke through the Persian barrage of arrows. The Persians were defeated, as they had been at Marathon, and this time they left for good. By a strange coincidence, the same day that the Greek armies won their victory near Plataea, the Athenian ships destroyed the enemy's fleet near Cape Mycale in Asia Minor. ”

“ At this point Sparta decided to destroy Plataea, the Athenian outpost in Boeotia. A very brilliant description of the siege and counter-operations reveals very clearly the Spartan inability to attack walled towns and explains their objection to fortified friends. Leaving the town guarded they retired for a time, to complete the work later. The war began to spread beyond the Peloponnese to the north of the Corinthian gulf, the control of which was important to both sides. The Acarnanians were attacked by Sparta and appealed to the Athenian admiral Phormio. ”

“ In that winter Potidæa was forced to capitulate to the Athenians.
In the summer of the third year, the Lacedæmonians called on the Platæans to desert the Athenian alliance. On their refusal, Platæa was besieged by the allied forces of the Peloponnesians. With splendid resolution, the Platæans defeated the attempt of the allies to force an entry till they were able to complete and withdraw behind a second and more easily tenable line of defence, when the Peloponnesians settled down to a regular investment. ”

“ In this case, if Platæa fell by storm, they would be obliged to restore it to Athens; but if it capitulated, they might allege that it was no conquest. With this view their commander protracted the blockade, until at length he discovered by a feint attack that the garrison was utterly unable to defend the walls. He then sent a herald to propose that they should surrender, not to the Thebans, but to the Spartans, on condition that Spartan judges alone should [559] decide upon their fate. ”

“ The proposition now made was so fair and tempting, that the general body of the Platæans were at first inclined to accept it, provided the Athenians would acquiesce; and they obtained from Archidamus a truce long enough to enable them to send envoys to Athens. After communication with the Athenian assembly, the envoys returned to Platæa, bearing the following answer: “Men of Platæa, the Athenians say they have never yet permitted you to be wronged since the alliance first began,—nor will they now betray you, but will help you to the best of their [p. 187] power. ”

“ Thus was effected without a blow, and with the concurrence of her most dreaded rival, that eventful revolution, which suddenly raised Athens, so secondary a state before the Persian war, to the supremacy over Greece. So much, when nations have an equal glory, can the one be brought to surpass the other (B. C. 477) by the superior wisdom of individuals. The victory of Plataea was won principally by Sparta, then at the head of Greece. ”

“ Platæa was so intimately united with Athens, that the Athenians felt the attack which had been made on it as an outrage offered to themselves, and prepared for immediate hostilities. Sparta, too, instantly sent notice to all her allies to get their contingents ready by an appointed day for the invasion of Attica. Two-thirds of the whole force which each raised were ordered to march, and when the time came assembled in the isthmus, where King Archidamus put himself at their head. An army more formidable, both in numbers and spirit, had never issued from the peninsula ”

“ Platæa was a small place, probably not very strongly fortified, and contained a garrison of only four hundred and eighty men, of whom eighty were Athenians. Fortunately, all the women and children had been sent to Athens, the only women remaining in the town being about a hundred slaves, who served as cooks. Around this small place gathered the entire army of Sparta and her allies, a force against which it seemed as if the few defenders could not hold out a week. But these faithful few were brave and resolute, and for a year and more they defied every effort of their foes. ”

“ And we were in the same case as when we were subdued before; but, by the favour of Heaven, we managed better, for we ended the war without the loss of our ships or walls or colonies; the enemy was only too glad to be quit of us. Yet in this war we lost many brave men, such as were those who fell owing to the ruggedness of the ground at the battle of Corinth, or by treason at Lechaeum. Brave men, too, were those who delivered the Persian king, and drove the Lacedaemonians from the sea. ”

“ For what men in general term peace would be said by him to be only a name; in reality every city is in a natural state of war with every other, not indeed proclaimed by heralds, but everlasting. And if you look closely, you will find that this was the intention of the Cretan legislator; all institutions, private as well as public, were arranged by him with a view to war; in giving them he was under the impression that no possessions or institutions are of any value to him who is defeated in battle; for all the good things of the conquered pass into the hands of the conquerors. ”

“ In the third year of the war the usual invasion of Attica was omitted, and the Peloponnesian army under Archidamus marched against Plataea. Having pitched their camp before the walls they prepared to lay waste the territory; but before the work of havoc began, the Plataeans sent envoys to remonstrate. "Unrighteous are your deeds," said the spokesman of the embassy, "ye men of Sparta, and unworthy of the men whose sons ye are. ”

“ The incident at Platæa, striking in all its points, wound up both parties to the full pitch of warlike excitement. A spirit of resolution and enterprise was abroad everywhere, especially among those younger citizens, yet unacquainted with the actual bitterness of war, whom the long truce but just broken had raised up ”

“ XXIV. Plutarch relates that a dangerous dispute ensued between the Spartans and Athenians as to their relative claim to the Aristeia, or first military honours; the question was decided by awarding them to the Plataeans—a state of which none were jealous; from a similar motive, ordinary men are usually found possessed of the honours due to the greatest.
More important than the Aristeia, had the spirit been properly maintained, were certain privileges then conferred on Plataea. ”

“ No sooner was their leader slain than the Persians fled in utter confusion, all but forty thousand who were led off the field by one of the generals, and these marching north reached the Hellespont and crossed over to Asia in safety.
Those who fled from the field took refuge in their camp, where the Spartans attacked them. But the barricades were strong, and the camp was not taken until the Athenians had returned and joined in the assault.
As the Greeks swarmed into the camp they slaughtered the enemy without mercy. So severe was the defeat of Plataea that the Persians were utterly crushed. ”

“ It is impossible to question the virtue of the man, but we may fairly dispute the wisdom of the system he adorned. We may doubt whether, in fact, his death served his country so much as his life would have done. It was the distinction of Thermopylae, that its heroes died in obedience to the laws; it was the distinction of Marathon, that its heroes lived to defeat the invader and preserve their country. And in proof of this distinction, we find afterward, at Plataea, that of all the allied Greeks the Spartans the most feared the conquerors of Thermopylae ”