Battle of Plataea

Having been elected general with sole powers in view of the expected battle, he came to Plataea at the head of eight thousand Athenian hoplites.

Mardonius will surely give battle on the morrow, not because he has substantial hope or even courage, but because he is destitute of provisions.

We are come, not to quarrel with our allies, but to do battle with our foes;

These offered sacrifice so that they would fare better in battle with Mardonius and the army which was with him.

At Plataea, however, the Persians, routed by the Lacedaemonians, fled in disorder to their own camp and inside the wooden walls which they had made in the territory of Thebes.

Where Mardonius was himself, riding a white horse in the battle and surrounded by a thousand picked men who were the flower of the Persians, there they pressed their adversaries hardest.

It was on the soil of Plataea that the Lacedaemonians had encamped with us and with the other allies, drawn up for battle against our enemies;

and there we had won freedom, not only for the Hellenes who fought with us, but also for those who were compelled to be on the side of the Persians, and we accomplished this with the help of the Plataeans, who alone of the Boeotians fought with us in that war.

but the Lacedaemonians and Tegeates routed the barbarians, while the Athenians and Plataeans fought and vanquished all the Greeks who had despaired of freedom and submitted to slavery.

when, however, the Persian ranks weree broken, the Spartans kept turning round and fighting like cavalry, and so won that great battle.

Lach. What you say is true.

But we—that is, I myself and our friend Megillus—affirm that it was the land-battle of Marathon which began the salvation of Greece, and that of Plataea which completed it;

The exploit at Plataea I put third both in order and in merit of those which secured the salvation of Greece;

but to the King she could not bring herself to lend official aid for fear of disgracing the trophies of Marathon, Salamis and Plataea, but she permitted exiles only and volunteers to assist him, and thereby, beyond a doubt, she saved him.

After the victory over the Medes at Plataea, he commanded his officers to set before him the Persian banquet that was already dressed;

Furthermore, Aristides was not the foremost man in any one of his victories, but Miltiades has the chief honour of Marathon, Themistocles of Salamis, and at Plataea, Herodotus says it was Pausanias who won that fairest of all victories, while even for second honours Aristides has such rivals as Sophanes, Ameinias, Callimachus, and Cynaegeirus, who displayed the greatest valour in those actions.

but those of Aristides include the fairest, most brilliant, and most important actions of the Greeks, namely, Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea.

This thoughtful prudence on the part of Themistocles and Aristides was afterwards justified by the campaign with Mardonius, since, although they fought at Plataea with the merest fraction of the armies of Xerxes, they yet staked their all upon the issue.

On the receipt of this letter, Pausanias, though he was even before held in high repute by the Greeks for his generalship at Plataea, was then much more exalted;