What happened
After Salamis, Mardonius wintered in Thessaly, reoccupied and burned Athens, and then withdrew into Boeotia, where the ground suited cavalry and where he had Theban support.
The allied Greek army assembled under Spartan command and took position in the foothills. Days of manoeuvring followed in which neither side would attack the other on unfavourable ground, and in which Persian cavalry harassment cut the Greeks off from water by fouling the Gargaphian spring.
A night withdrawal to a better position went wrong and left the Greek army divided at dawn. Mardonius attacked what he took to be a rout.
The Spartans and Tegeans held and then broke the Persian infantry; Mardonius was killed in the fighting. The Athenians engaged the Theban contingent on the other wing. The Persian camp was stormed. Artabazus withdrew north with a substantial force and escaped.
Tactics
Plataea is the clearest ancient case of a battle decided by logistics and ground rather than by manoeuvre. Both commanders spent longer refusing battle than fighting it. The Persian advantage was cavalry, which could dominate open ground and interdict water; the Greek advantage was heavy infantry in close order, which was decisive once the lines met. The engagement began by accident, out of a mishandled night move.
Consequence
The Persian attempt to conquer mainland Greece ended. The victory also began the political sequence that produced the Athenian empire: the allied fleet moved to the offensive in the Aegean, and within a few years the leadership of the war had passed from Sparta to Athens.
Location
The plain below Plataea, in southern Boeotia, along the Asopos river
Modern: Near Erythres, Boeotia, Greece
The general area is secure; the specific positions of the two armies during the days of manoeuvring before the battle are reconstructed from Herodotus's topographical references and are debated.
Archaeology
The Serpent Column is the strongest material evidence for any battle in this period: a contemporary dedication naming the participating states, still legible, now standing in the Hippodrome at Istanbul. It corroborates the alliance rather than the battle narrative.
Open questions
What happened during the night withdrawal?
Herodotus's account of the Greek army breaking into separated groups before dawn is confused, and includes a Spartan officer publicly refusing to move. Whether the episode is a real command failure, a later attempt to explain a disordered position, or a story about Spartan discipline is argued.
Primary sources
Herodotus, Histories 9.1-89
The principal narrative.
Plutarch, Life of Aristides 11-21
A later account preserving an Athenian tradition.
Anonymous dedication, The Serpent Column Delphi dedication
A bronze victory monument inscribed with the names of the thirty-one allied states, dedicated at Delphi from the spoils and later removed to Constantinople, where the shaft survives.
How to read the evidence labels
- Evidence level: Documented
- Supported by a named primary text or by excavated material evidence.
- Evidence level: Probable
- Supported by strong inference that most specialists accept.
- Evidence level: Disputed
- Substantial specialist disagreement exists; competing readings are stated.
- Evidence level: Literary
- Belongs to poetic or mythological construction rather than to history.
- Evidence level: Mythological
- Belongs to shared religious or mythic tradition rather than to any single text.
- Evidence level: Unknown
- The available evidence is insufficient to decide.
These labels describe the status of the evidence, not our confidence in a conclusion. A claim marked Literary is not a claim we doubt; it is a claim about what kind of thing a poem is.