Plataea

Origins

Plataea lay on the northern slopes of Mount Cithaeron, on the border between Boeotia and Attica. When Thebes pressed it to join the Boeotian League in the late 6th century BCE, the Plataeans turned to Athens, traditionally in 519 BCE. That alliance shaped the rest of their history: alone among the Greeks, they sent their whole levy to fight beside the Athenians at Marathon in 490 BCE.

Rule and society

A modest farming community governed by its own citizen assembly, Plataea mattered far beyond its size. In 479 BCE the allied Greek army under the Spartan Pausanias defeated the Persian general Mardonius on its territory, and the city was charged with tending the graves of the fallen and hosting a festival of freedom, the Eleutheria. Its people spoke the Boeotian dialect and kept close cultural ties with Athens.

Decline and legacy

Theban aggression began the Peloponnesian War at Plataea in 431 BCE; after a famous siege the city surrendered to Sparta and was razed in 427 BCE. Restored in 386 BCE, it was destroyed again by Thebes in 373 BCE and rebuilt under Philip II and Alexander. It then belonged to the Boeotian League until Roman conquest in 146 BCE.