Plataea's Famous Day

On a certain day, destined to be thereafter famous, two strong armies

faced each other on the plain north of the little Boeotian town of

Plataea. Greece had gathered the greatest army it had ever yet put into

the field, in all numbering one hundred and ten thousand men, of whom

nearly forty thousand were hoplites, or heavy-armed troops, the

remainder light-armed or unarmed. Of these Sparta supplied five thousand

hoplit s and thirty-five thousand light-armed Helots, the greatest army

that warlike city had ever brought into action. The remainder of Laconia

furnished five thousand hoplites and five thousand Helot attendants.

Athens sent eight thousand hoplites, and the remainder of the army came

from various states of Greece. This host was in strange contrast to the

few thousand warriors with whom Greece had met the vast array of Xerxes

at Thermopylae.



Opposed to this force was the army which Xerxes had left behind him on

his flight from Greece, three hundred thousand of his choicest troops,

under the command of his trusted general Mardonius. This host was not a

mob of armed men, like that which Xerxes had led. It embraced the best

of the Persian forces and Greek auxiliaries, and the hopes of Greece

still seemed but slight, thus outnumbered three to one. But the Greeks

fought for liberty, and were inspired with the spirit of their recent

victories; the Persians were disheartened and disunited: this difference

of feeling went far to equalize the hosts.



And now, before bringing the waiting armies to battle, we must tell what

led to their meeting on the Plataean plain. After the battle of Salamis a

vote was taken by the chiefs to decide who among them should be awarded

the prize of valor on that glorious day. Each cast two ballots, and when

these were counted each chief was found to have cast his first vote

for--himself! But the second votes were nearly all for Themistocles, and

all Greece hailed him as its preserver. The Spartans crowned him with

olive, and presented him with a kingly chariot, and when he left their

city they escorted him with the honors due to royalty.



Meanwhile Mardonius, who was wintering with his army in Thessaly, sent

to Athens to ask if its people still proposed the madness of opposing

the power of Xerxes the king. "Yes," was the answer; "while the sun

lights the sky we will never join in alliance with barbarians against

Greeks."



On receiving this answer Mardonius broke up his winter camp and marched

again to Athens, which he found once more empty of inhabitants. Its

people had withdrawn as before to Salamis, and left the shell of their

nation to the foe.



The Athenians sent for aid to Sparta, but the people of that city,

learning that Athens had defied Mardonius, selfishly withheld their

assistance, and the completion of the wall across the isthmus was

diligently pushed. Fortunately for Greece, this selfish policy came to a

sudden end. "What will your wall be worth if Athens joins with Persia

and gives the foe the aid of her fleet?" was asked the Spartan kings;

and so abruptly did they change their opinion that during that same

night five thousand Spartan hoplites, each man with seven Helot

attendants, marched for the isthmus, with Pausanias, a cousin of

Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae, at their head.



On learning of this movement, Mardonius set fire to what of Athens

remained, and fell back on the city of Thebes, in Boeotia, as a more

favorable field for the battle which now seemed sure to come. Here his

numerous cavalry could be brought into play, the country was allied with

him, the friendly city of Thebes lay behind him, and food for his great

army was to be had. Here, then, he awaited the coming of the Greeks, and

built for his army a fortified camp, surrounded with walls and towers of

wood.



Yet his men and officers alike lacked heart. At a splendid banquet given

to Mardonius by the Thebans, one of the Persians said to his Theban

neighbor,--



"Seest thou these Persians here feasting, and the army which we left

yonder encamped near the river? Yet a little while, and out of all these

thou shalt behold but a few surviving."



"If you feel thus," said the Theban, "thou art surely bound to reveal it

to Mardonius."



"My friend," answered the Persian, "man cannot avert what God has

decreed. No one will believe the revelation, sure though it be. Many of

us Persians know this well, and are here serving only under the bond of

necessity. And truly this is the most hateful of all human sufferings,

to be full of knowledge, and at the same time to have no power over any

result."



Not long had the lukewarm Persians to wait for their foes. Soon the army

of Greece appeared, and, seeing their enemy encamped along the little

river Asopus in the plain, took post on the mountain declivity above.

Here they were not suffered to rest in peace. The powerful Persian

cavalry, led by Masistius, the most distinguished officer in the army,

broke like a thunderbolt on the Grecian ranks. The Athenians and

Megarians met them, and a sharp and doubtful contest ensued. At length

Masistius fell from his wounded horse and was slain as he lay on the

ground. The Persians fought with fury to recover his body, but were

finally driven back, leaving the corpse of their general in the hands of

the Greeks.



This event had a great effect on both armies. Grief assailed the army of

Mardonius at the loss of their favorite general. Loud wailings filled

the camp, and the hair of men, horses, and cattle was cut in sign of

mourning. The Greeks, on the contrary, were full of joy. The body of

Masistius, a man of great stature, and clad in showy armor, was placed

in a cart and paraded around the camp, that all might see it and

rejoice. Such was their confidence at this defeat of the cavalry, which

they had sorely feared, that Pausanias broke up his hill camp and

marched into the plain below, where he took station in front of the

Persian host, only the little stream of the Asopus dividing the two

hostile armies.



And here for days they lay, both sides offering sacrifices, and both

obtaining the same oracle,--that the side which attacked would lose the

battle, the side which resisted would win. Under such circumstances

neither side cared to attack, and for ten days the armies lay, the

Greeks much annoyed by the Persian cavalry, and having their convoys of

provisions cut off, yet still waiting with unyielding faith in the

decision of the gods.



Mardonius at length grew impatient. He asked his officers if they knew

of any prophecy saying that the Persians would be destroyed in Greece.

They were all silent, though many of them knew of such prophecies.



"Since you either do not know or will not tell," he at length said, "I

well know of one. There is an oracle which declares that Persian

invaders shall plunder the temple of Delphi, and shall afterwards all be

destroyed. Now we shall not go against that temple, so on that ground we

shall not be destroyed. Doubt not, then, but rejoice, for we shall get

the better of the Greeks." And he gave orders to prepare for battle on

the morrow, without waiting longer on the sacrifices.



That night Alexander of Macedon, who was in the Persian army, rode up to

the Greek outposts and gave warning of the coming attack. "I am of Greek

descent," he said, "and ask you to free me from the Persian yoke. I

cannot endure to see Greece enslaved."



During the night Pausanias withdrew his army to a new position in front

of the town of Plataea, water being wanting where they were. One Spartan

leader, indeed, refused to move, and when told that there had been a

general vote of the officers, he picked up a huge stone and cast it at

the feet of Pausanias, crying, "This is my pebble. With it I give my

vote not to run away from the strangers."



Dawn was at hand, and the Spartans still held their ground, their leader

disputing in vain with the obstinate captain. At length he gave the

order to march, it being fatal to stay, since the rest of the army had

gone. Amompharetus, the obstinate captain, seeing that his general had

really gone, now lost his scruples and followed.



When day dawned the Persians saw with surprise that their foes had

disappeared. The Spartans alone, detained by the obstinacy of

Amompharetus, were still in sight. Filled with extravagant confidence at

this seeming flight. Mardonius gave orders for hasty pursuit, crying to

a Greek ally, "There go your boasted Spartans, showing, by a barefaced

flight, what they are really worth."



Crossing the shallow stream, the Persians ran after the Greeks at full

speed, without a thought of order or discipline. The foe seemed to them

in full retreat, and shouts of victory rang from their lips as they

rushed pell-mell across the plain.



The Spartans were quickly overtaken, and found themselves hotly

assailed. They sent in haste to the Athenians for aid. The Athenians

rushed forward, but soon found themselves confronted by the Greek allies

of Persia, and with enough to do to defend themselves. The remainder of

the Greek army had retreated to Plataea and took no part in the battle.



The Persians, thrusting the spiked extremities of their long shields in

the ground, formed a breastwork from which they poured showers of arrows

on the Spartan ranks, by which many were wounded or slain. Yet, despite

their distress, Pausanias would not give the order to charge. He was at

the old work again, offering sacrifices while his men fell around him.

The responses were unfavorable, and he would not fight.



At length the victims showed favorable signs. "Charge!" was the word.

With the fury of unchained lions the impatient hoplites sprang forward,

and like an avalanche the serried Spartan line fell on the foe.



Down went the breastwork of shields. Down went hundreds of Persians

before the close array and the long spears of the Spartans. Broken and

disordered, the Persians fought bravely, doing their utmost to get to

close quarters with their foes. Mardonius, mounted on a white horse, and

attended by a body-guard of a thousand select troops, was among the

foremost warriors, and his followers distinguished themselves by their

courage.



At length the spear of Aeimnestus, a distinguished Spartan, brought

Mardonius dead to the ground. His guards fell in multitudes around his

body. The other Persians, worn out with the hopeless effort to break

the Spartan phalanx, and losing heart at the death of their general,

turned and fled to their fortified camp. At the same time the Theban

allies of Persia, whom the Athenians had been fighting, gave ground, and

began a retreat, which was not ended till they reached the walls of

Thebes.



On rushed the victorious Spartans to the Persian camp, which they at

once assailed. Here they had no success till the Athenians came to their

aid, when the walls were stormed and the defenders slain in such hosts

that, if we can believe Herodotus, only three thousand out of the three

hundred thousand of the army of Mardonius remained alive. It is true

that one body of forty thousand men, under Artabazus, had been too late

on the field to take part in the fight. The Persians were already

defeated when these troops came in sight, and they turned and marched

away for the Hellespont, leaving the defeated host to shift for itself.

Of the Greeks, Plutarch tells us that the total loss in the battle was

thirteen hundred and sixty men.



The spoil found in the Persian camp was rich and varied. It included

money and ornaments of gold and silver, carpets, splendid arms and

clothing, horses, camels, and other valuable materials. This was divided

among the victors, a tenth of the golden spoil being reserved for the

Delphian shrine, and wrought into a golden tripod, which was placed on a

column formed of three twisted bronze serpents. This defeat was the

salvation of Greece. No Persian army ever again set foot on European

soil. And, by a striking coincidence, on the same day that the battle

of Plataea was fought, the Grecian fleet won a brilliant victory at

Mycale, in Asia Minor, and freed the Ionian cities from Persian rule. In

Greece, Thebes was punished for aiding the Persians. Byzantium (now

Constantinople) was captured by Pausanias, and the great cables of the

bridge of Xerxes were brought home in triumph by the Greeks.



We have but one more incident to tell. The war tent of Xerxes had been

left to Mardonius, and on taking the Persian camp Pausanias saw it with

its colored hangings and its gold and silver adornments, and gave orders

to the cooks that they should prepare him such a feast as they were used

to do for their lord. On seeing the splendid banquet, he ordered that a

Spartan supper should be prepared. With a hearty laugh at the contrast

he said to the Greek leaders, for whom he had sent, "Behold, O Greeks,

the folly of this Median captain, who, when he enjoyed such fare as

this, must needs come here to rob us of our penury."