Battle of Plataea

The Battle of Plataea is a symbol for a great power to be able to win. And as a great power not to think that you are invincible.

This is expressed in the play The Persians by Aeschylus: "He who is mortal should not have too many pretensions."

The invincible one was Xerxes , head of the Persian Empire, who was on his way west to conquer Greece with his gigantic army.

He assumed that his force was so large that it was useless to resist. His technique: intimidation.

He even set fire to the sanctuary of the Greeks, the Acropolis.

But resistance came. It had already been there at Thermopylae by the Spartans under Leonidas. The 300 elite warriors of Leonidas all lost their lives, but it showed that the invincible was not so invincible after all.

Finally, there was the famous naval battle of Salamis where the invincible Xerxes suffered his first major defeat. Xerxes fled, leaving his demoralized armies behind.

They were dealt the final death blow here at Plataea in 479 BC. This victory marked the end of the Persian invasions of Greece and was a pivotal moment in the Greco-Persian Wars.

Dromos