The Athenians reoccupied their city. The Peloponnesians were content to remain behind their defensive wall on the Isthmus. The Greek fleet, now under the command of the Spartan king Leotychidas (c.76; r.491-476; d.469 BC), went to Delos, whilst the remnants of the Persian fleet went to Samos, neither side wanting to risk battle.
After accompanying his king to the Hellespont, the Persian general Artabazus (1) (fl.480-455 BC) returned to Chalcidice and besieged the cities of Potidaea (Pallene) and Olynthus (near Pallene), which were in revolt against Persia, and prevented the rebellion from spreading. He took Olynthus, but called off the siege of Potidaea after three months and joined Mardonius in Thessaly.
In spring 479 BC Mardonius, needing the Athenian fleet and using Alexander-I of Macedonia as his envoy, tried to win the Athenians away from the Spartan alliance by offering independence and reparations, but his offer was refused. In early July he marched south, ravaged Attica and occupied Athens for a second time. He repeated his offer to the Athenians, who had again withdrawn to Salamis, but it was rejected.
The Athenians sent a message to Sparta saying if they wanted Athens’ navy, they had to save Athens’ land. The Spartans were divided but the faction that saw that Mardonius had to be beaten finally prevailed. A Spartan army of 38,000 hoplites led by Pausanias (Agiad; d.c.470 BC), regent for his cousin Pleistarchus (Agiad; r.480-459 BC), started to move north. Mardonius responded by moving from Attica into Boeotia where the territory was better suited for cavalry.
Mardonius created a fortified encampment in the southern plain of Boeotia on the north bank of the Asopus River, facing the foothills of Mount Cithaeron. The Greek army arrived near Plataea, south of the Persian position on the Asopus, and took up positions on the higher ground. Mardonius’ plan was to wait for the Greek army to attack him, or for it to disintegrate under its own dissentions. However, as at Marathon, the Greek infantry could not face the Persian cavalry on the plain, and were therefore unable to attack the Persian infantry.
The two armies apparently remained facing each other on either side of the Asopus for several weeks. During this time the Greeks suffered from the attentions of the Persian cavalry and inadequate sources of water. Greek morale was raised for a few days when the Persian cavalry commander Masistius was killed, but when the cavalry blocked and fouled the Greeks’ chief source of water a conference was called and it was decided to move to higher ground during the night.
However, the retreat went somewhat awry. The contingents in the centre quickly retreated south to Plataea itself; on the right the Spartan officer Amompharetus, reluctant to withdraw, was retreating slowly; and on the left the Athenians were ordered by Pausanias to close with the Spartans to fill the gap created by the fast withdrawal of the centre.
To Mardonius it seemed that the Greek army had disintegrated. He abandoned his waiting game and ordered his infantry to advance quickly. His Greek allies on the right were sent to cut off the Athenians, and his Persian infantry attacked the Spartans and the Tegeans. Pausanias, however, held his hoplites steady and then charged downhill. Mardonius was killed and the Persian infantry broke in disorder. Artabazus, some infantry and the cavalry made off towards the north. On the left wing the Athenians fought off the Boeotian collaborators, who withdrew to Thebes, and then joined with Pausanias to take the Persian stockade built north of the Asopus. After the battle, Pausanias had the Theban medisers to death.
Leotychidas, with 250 warships, sailed to Samos to challenge the remnants of the Persian fleet. The Persians, deciding not to risk fighting at sea, dismissed the Phoenician ships and took the remaining ships to the mainland, where they were beached at the foot of Mount Mycale in Ionia and a stockade built around them. The Greeks landed and, after a tough fight during which many the Ionians in the Persian army changed sides, burned the whole of the Persian fleet.
After the victory at Mycale the allied fleet sailed northwards, drawing islands such as Samos, Chios and Lesbos into the Greek League. It then made for Abydos, where Leotychidas’ intention was to break up Xerxes’ bridge over the Hellespont, but it had already been washed away.
The Peloponnesians sailed home, but the Athenian commanders remained to attack the Chersonese, still held by the Persians, who made for Sestus. After a long siege, the city fell to the Athenians. In spring 478 BC Xanthippus sailed home with the cables that had held Xerxes’ bridge.
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