Latest / The History of Greece: Philosophy, Empire, and Endless Reinvention — Fexingo History / Plataea: The Battle That Ended the Persian Invasion
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you know that after Salamis the Persian invasion wasn't over. Xerxes fled back to Asia, but he left his best general, Mardonius, with a picked army to finish the job. Luna: So the war was still on—Mardonius just kept pushing? Lucas: Exactly. He wintered in Thessaly, then in the spring of 479 BC he marched south and retook Athens—the Athenians had to evacuate for a second time. But the Greek alliance didn't crumble. Under the Spartan regent Pausanias—nephew of Leonidas—they assembled the largest hoplite army Greece had ever seen: maybe 40,000 men from nearly thirty city-states. Lucas: They marched to meet Mardonius near the small town of Plataea, in Boeotia. The Persian army was enormous too—Herodotus says 300,000, but modern estimates put it around 70 to 120 thousand. It was going to be a clash of infantry versus cavalry, heavy armor versus mobility. Luna: So the Greeks had the hoplite phalanx, but the Persians had the advantage in horsemen. Lucas: Right. Mardonius had excellent cavalry, and he used it to harass the Greek supply lines and try to lure them out of good defensive positions. For over a week, the two armies played a cat and mouse game on the plains below Mount Kithairon. The Greeks held the high ground near the Asopus River, but their water supply was cut and their food was running low. Lucas: Then, on the night before the final battle, the Greeks executed a complex retreat—or what was supposed to be a repositioning—that went badly. The Spartans got isolated, the Athenians were out of position, and the whole line broke into three pieces. Luna: So the battle started as a mistake? That sounds incredibly dangerous. Lucas: It was. When dawn broke, Mardonius saw his opportunity and hurled his whole army at the Spartans, who were stuck on a ridge with no support. But there's a reason the Spartans were the best. Pausanias held them in place, and the hoplites, with their long spears and bronze shields, simply broke wave after wave of Persian infantry. Lucas: The turning point came when Mardonius himself, riding a white horse, charged into the fray with his elite guard. A Spartan soldier named Arimnestos killed him with a rock to the head—or maybe a spear, accounts vary. Once the commander fell, the Persian line collapsed. Luna: That's a dramatic detail—a rock? That feels very Homeric. Lucas: It does. Herodotus tells it that way, anyway. The Persians fled to their fortified camp, and the Greeks stormed it. Almost the entire Persian army was slaughtered or captured. It was the most decisive victory of the Persian Wars. Lucas: We deliberately don't run ads on these episodes—it's important to us that this history stays accessible. If that kind of thing matters to you, and you want to support our independence, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just thanks for listening. Luna: Yeah, we love being able to do this without ad breaks. Now—after that victory, what happened to the Persians who were left? Lucas: Good question. The survivors under Artabazus retreated all the way back to Asia Minor. The Greek navy also finished the job at the Battle of Mycale, near Samos, on the same day—or so the story goes. The Persian threat to mainland Greece was over for good. Luna: And Plataea itself—the town that gave the battle its name—was it rewarded? Lucas: Absolutely. The Greeks swore a pact to guarantee Plataea's safety, and they built a trophy of victory—a bronze serpent column—that was later moved to Constantinople. But ironically, the city was destroyed by Thebes in 427 BC during the Peloponnesian War, and then again by Alexander the Great in 335. So the place that symbolized Greek unity suffered for that same loyalty. Lucas: The battle also became a key part of the Greek origin story. Every year, the Plataeans held a festival called the Eleutheria—the Freedom Games—to commemorate the dead. And the tomb of the Greek fallen was a sacred site for centuries. But unlike Marathon or Salamis, Plataea never got its due in popular memory. Herodotus ends his with the aftermath, almost like he's saying: this is the ending. Luna: Why do you think it's less remembered? Lucas: Partly because it was a messy, land-based slog without a single heroic figure like Themistocles or Leonidas. And partly because the Spartans—who won it—didn't do the kind of mythmaking the Athenians did. Plus, Athens later focused on Marathon and Salamis as their own glorious moments. Plataea became a Spartan story, and Sparta's star faded. Luna: That makes sense—history is written by the victors, but also by the ones who keep writing. Lucas: Exactly. So Plataea stands as a reminder: sometimes the most decisive battles are the ones we don't romanticize. Just the brutal, necessary end of a war. Lucas: If you want to read the full account, Herodotus Book 9 is the place to go—it's suspenseful, bloody, and surprisingly honest about the chaos. Thanks for coming along with us.