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summer 479 BCEReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

The Battle of Plataea Ends the Persian Invasion

Mardonius gambles on drawing the Greek army into the open and loses the last Persian field army in Greece

On the timeline · around summer 479 BCE · Xerxes, the Greco-Persian Wars, and the Later AchaemenidsDarius I and the Achaemenid Imperial SystemXerxes, the Greco-Persian Wars, and the Later AchaemenidsThe Battle of Plataea Ends the Persian Invasion490 BCE480 BCE470 BCE460 BCE450 BCE440 BCE430 BCE

Quick facts

Persian commander
Mardonius (killed in battle)
Greek commander
Pausanias of Sparta
Date
Summer 479 BCE
Result
Last Persian army in Greece destroyed

What happened

After Xerxes withdrew most of his forces following Salamis, his general Mardonius remained in northern Greece over the winter with a reduced army, hoping to bribe or fight the Greek coalition into submission. The following summer, in 479 BCE, Mardonius faced a combined Greek force at Plataea commanded by the Spartan regent Pausanias. Running low on supplies and worried by the growing Greek numbers, Mardonius tried to draw the Greeks into open ground where Persian cavalry could be effective; when the Greeks briefly retreated under archer fire, the Persians crossed a river believing they had won, only to be broken by the superior close-order fighting of the Spartan phalanx. Mardonius was killed in the fighting and the Athenians captured the Persian camp. On the same day, according to tradition, a Greek fleet destroyed the remaining Persian navy at Mycale on the Anatolian coast.

Why it matters

Plataea eliminated the last organized Persian army on Greek soil and ended the second Persian invasion for good. Pausanias, despite falling from favor soon afterward on other charges, had commanded the largest Greek army ever assembled to that point and delivered a battlefield defeat of an imperial Persian army that no Greek force had managed unaided before.

How we know

Herodotus provides the primary narrative, written within a couple of generations of the battle and drawing on testimony from participants' families on both the Athenian and Spartan sides.

Sources

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