The battle of Platæa (479 B.C.) was won by the Lacedæmonian and Athenian hoplites practically alone, without the aid of the very motley host of allies from the smaller states. The difficulty seems to have been to induce Mardonius to fight on ground favorable for the evolutions of the Greek heavy infantry. He had been pursuing a harassing policy, using his superior cavalry to cut off the Greeks’ supplies, and retreating within his fortified camp. To change this, Pausanias and his allies resolved to retreat to the hills; but the movement was delayed in the night, and morning found the Greek army scattered dangerously over the plain. It was then Mardonius committed his blunder of underestimating the fighting power of the Spartan and Athenian infantry alone, and hastened out to attack them. Never was the Spartan discipline better vindicated than in the spear-press at Platæa.
Having made these resolves, they continued during that whole day to suffer beyond measure from the attacks of the Persian horse. At length when towards dusk the attacks of the horse ceased, and, night having closed in, the hour arrived at which the army was to commence its retreat, the greater number struck their tents and began the march towards the rear. They were not minded, however, to make for the place agreed upon; but in their anxiety to escape from the Persian horse, no sooner had they begun to move than they fled straight to Platæa, where they took post at the temple of Hera, which lies outside the city, at the distance of about twenty furlongs from Gargaphia; and here they pitched their camp in front of the sacred building.
As soon as Pausanias saw a portion of the troops in motion, he issued orders to the Lacedæmonians to strike their tents and follow those who had been the first to depart, supposing that they were on their march to the place agreed upon. All the captains but one were ready to obey his orders: Amompharetus, however, the son of Poliadas, who was leader of the Pitanate cohort, refused to move, saying, “He for one would not fly from the strangers, or of his own will bring disgrace upon Sparta.” It had happened that he was absent from the former conference of the captains; and so what was now taking place astonished him. Pausanias and Euryanax thought it a monstrous thing that Amompharetus would not hearken to them; but considered that it would be yet more monstrous, if, when he was so minded, they were to leave the Pitanates to their fate; seeing that, if they forsook them to keep their agreement with the other Greeks, Amompharetus and those with him might perish. On this account, therefore, they kept the Lacedæmonian force in its place, and made every endeavor to persuade Amompharetus that he was wrong to act as he was doing.
The Athenians halt on the March
While the Spartans were engaged in these efforts to turn Amompharetus — the only man unwilling to retreat either in their own army or in that of the Tegeans — the Athenians on their side did as follows. Knowing that it was the Spartan temper to say one thing and do another, they remained quiet in their station until the army began to retreat, when they dispatched a horseman to see whether the Spartans really meant to set forth, or whether after all they had no intention of moving. The horseman was also to ask Pausanias what he wished the Athenians to do.
The herald on his arrival found the Lacedæmonians drawn up in their old position, and their leaders quarreling with one another. Pausanias and Euryanax had gone on urging Amompharetus not to endanger the lives of his men by staying behind while the others drew off, but without succeeding in persuading him; until at last the dispute had waxed hot between them just at the moment when the Athenian herald arrived. At this point Amompharetus, who was still disputing, took up with both his hands a vast rock, and placed it at the feet of Pausanias, saying – “With this pebble I give my vote not to run away from the strangers.” [By “strangers” he meant barbarians.] Pausanias, in reply, called him a fool and a madman, and, turning to the Athenian herald, who had made the inquiries with which he was charged, bade him tell his countrymen how he was occupied, and ask them to approach nearer, and retreat or not according to the movements of the Spartans.
Pausanias at last falls Back
So the herald went back to the Athenians; and the Spartans continued to dispute till morning began to dawn upon them. Then Pausanias, who as yet had not moved, gave the signal for retreat — expecting (and rightly, as the event proved) that Amompharetus, when he saw the rest of the Lacedæmonians in motion, would be unwilling to be left behind. No sooner was the signal given than all the army except the Pitanates began their march, and retreated along the line of the hills, the Tegeans accompanying them. The Athenians likewise set off in good order, but proceeded by a different way from the Lacedæmonians. For while the latter clung to the hilly ground and the skirts of Mount Citheeron, on account of the fear which they entertained of the enemy’s horse, the former betook themselves to the low country and marched through the plain.
As for Amompharetus, at first he did not believe that Pausanias would really dare to leave him behind; he therefore remained firm in his resolve to keep his men at their post; when, however, Pausanias and his troops were now some way off, Amompharetus, thinking himself forsaken in good earnest, ordered his band to take their arms, and led them at a walk towards the main army. Now the army was waiting for them at a distance of about ten furlongs, having halted upon the river Moloies at a place called Agriopius, where stands a temple of the Eleusinian Demeter. They had stopped here, that, in case Amompharetus and his band should refuse to quit the spot where they were drawn up, and should really not stir from it, they might have it in their power to move back and lend them assistance. Amompharetus, however, and his companions rejoined the main body; and at the same time the whole mass of the barbarian cavalry arrived and began to press hard upon them. The horsemen had followed their usual practice and ridden up to the Greek camp, when they discovered that the place where the Greeks had been posted hitherto was deserted. Hereupon they pushed forward without stopping, and, as soon as they overtook the enemy, pressed heavily on them.
Mardonius falls on the Spartans
Mardonius, when he heard that the Greeks had retired under cover of the night, and beheld the place where they had been stationed, empty, crossed the Asopus, and led the Persians forward at a run directly upon the track of the Greeks, whom he believed to be in actual flight. He could not see the Athenians; for as they had taken the way of the plain, they were hidden from his sight by the hills; he therefore led on his troops against the Lacedæmonians and the Tegeans only. When the commanders of the other divisions of the barbarians saw the Persians pursuing the Greeks so hastily, they all forthwith seized their standards, and hurried after at their best speed in great disorder and disarray. On they went with loud shouts and in a wild rout, thinking to swallow up the runaways. Meanwhile Pausanias had sent a horseman to the Athenians, at the time when the cavalry first fell upon him [begging for their immediate help since the other allied Greeks were far to the rear].
The Athenians, as soon as they received this message, were anxious to go to the aid of the Spartans, and to help them to the uttermost of their power; but, as they were upon the march, the Greeks on the king’s side, whose place in the line had been opposite theirs, fell upon them, and so harassed them by their attacks that it was not possible for them to give the succor they desired. Accordingly the Lacedæmonians, and the Tegeans — whom nothing could induce to quit their side — were left alone to resist the Persians. Including the light-armed, the number of the former was 50,000, while that of the Tegeans was 3000. Now, therefore, as they were about to engage with Mardonius and the troops under him, they made ready to offer sacrifice. The victims, however, for some time were not favorable; and, during the delay, many fell on the Spartan side, and a still greater number were wounded. For the Persians had made a rampart of their wicker shields, and shot from behind them such clouds of arrows that the Spartans were sorely distressed. The victims continued unpropifcious; till at last Pausanias raised his eyes to the Heræum of the Platæans, and calling the goddess to his aid, besought her not to disappoint the hopes of the Greeks.
Pausanias overthrows the Persians
As he offered his prayer, the Tegeans, advancing before the rest, rushed forward against the enemy; and the Lacedæmonians, who had obtained favorable omens the moment that Pausanias prayed, at length, after their long delay, advanced to the attack; while the Persians, on their side, left shooting, and prepared to meet them. And first the combat was at the wicker shields. Afterwards, when these were swept down, a fierce contest took place by the side of the temple of Demeter, which lasted long, and ended in a hand-to-hand struggle. The barbarians many times seized hold of the Greek spears and brake them; for in boldness and warlike spirit the Persians were not a whit inferior to the Greeks; but they were without bucklers, untrained, and far below the enemy in respect of skill in arms. Sometimes singly, sometimes in bodies of ten, now fewer and now more in number, they dashed forward upon the Spartan ranks, and so perished.
The fight went most against the Greeks, where Mardonius, mounted upon a white horse, and surrounded by the bravest of all the Persians, the thousand picked men, fought in person. So long as Mardonius was alive, this body resisted all attacks, and, while they defended their own lives, struck down no small number of Spartans; but after Mardonius fell, and the troops with him, which were the main strength of the army, perished, the remainder yielded to the Lacedæmonians, and took to flight. Their light clothing, and want of bucklers, were of the greatest hurt to them; for they had to contend against men heavily armed, while they themselves were without any such defense.
Then did Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, and grandson of Anaxandridas (I omit to recount his other ancestors, since they are the same with those of Leonidas), win a victory exceeding in glory all those to which our knowledge extends.
The Persians, as soon as they were put to flight by the Lacedæmonians, ran hastily away, without preserving any order, and took refuge in their own camp, within the wooden defense which they had raised in the Theban territory.
As for the Greeks upon the king’s side, while most of them played the coward purposely, the Boetians, on the contrary, had a long struggle with the Athenians. Those of the Thebans who were attached to the Medes, displayed especially no little zeal; far from playing the coward, they fought with such fury that three hundred of the. best and bravest among them were slain by the Athenians in this passage of arms. But at last they, too, were routed, and fled away — not, however, in the same direction as the Persians and the crowd of allies, who, having taken no part in the battle, ran off without striking a blow — but to the city of Thebes.
The Storming of the Camp
The Persians, and the multitude with them, who fled to the wooden fortress, were able to ascend into the towers before the Lacedæmonians came up. Thus placed, they proceeded to strengthen the defenses as well as they could; and when the Lacedæmonians arrived, a sharp fight took place at the rampart. So long as the Athenians were away, the barbarians kept off their assailants, and had much the best of the combat, since the Lacedæmonians were unskilled in the attack of walled places, but on the arrival of the Athenians, a more violent assault was made, and the wall was for a long time attacked with fury. In the end the valor of the Athenians and their perseverance prevailed — they gained the top of the wall, and, breaking a breach through it, enabled the Greeks to pour in. The first to enter here were the Tegeans, and they it was who plundered the tent of Mardonius, where among other booty, they found the manger from which his horses ate, all made of solid brass, and well worth looking at. As soon as the wall was broken down, the barbarians no longer kept together in any array, nor “was there one among them who thought of making further resistance — in good truth, they were all half dead with fright, huddled as so many thousands were into so narrow and confined a space. With such lameness did they submit to be slaughtered by the Greeks, that of the 300,000 men who composed the army omitting the 40,000 by whom Artabazus was accompanied in his flight — no more than 3000 outlived the battle.1 Of the Lacedæmonians from Sparta there perished in this combat ninety-one; of the Tegeans, sixteen; of the Athenians, fifty-two.