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PLATAEA 479 BC
The most glorious victory ever seen
WILLIAM SHEPHERD
ILLUSTRATED BY PETER DENNIS
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
CAMPAIGN • 239
PLATAEA 479 BC
The most glorious victory ever seen
WILLIAM SHEPHERD
ILLUSTRATED BY PETER DENNIS
Series editor
Marcus Cowper
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
CONTENTS
ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN
CHRONOLOGY
OPPOSING COMMANDERS
Persian
Greek
5
17
18
OPPOSING FORCES
Persian forces, weapons and tactics
Greek forces, weapons and tactics
Numbers
22
OPPOSING PLANS
Persian
Greek
38
THE CAMPAIGN TO PLATAEA AND MYCALE
PLATAEA
Opening action Middle phase (10–11 days)
Final phase: the last 24 hours and ‘the most glorious victory ever known’
42
50
MYCALE
Amphibious operations
79
AFTER THE BATTLES
THE BATTLEFIELDS TODAY
Plataea
Mycale
86
90
FURTHER READING AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
93
95
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN
Our foremost source begins, ‘This
Historia
of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is
presented here so that the events of mankind should not fade in memory over
time, nor the great and marvellous deeds performed by Hellenes and
barbarians go unsung, and, indeed, so that the reason for which they went to
war with each other should not be forgotten’ (I.1);
Historia
is most accurately
translated as ‘enquiry’ or ‘research’. The most usual translation of the word
barbaros
is ‘barbarian’, but in the early 5th century
BC
it did not necessarily
carry the sense of ‘uncivilized’ or ‘wild’. It was simply applied to anyone ‘non-
Greek’, like the Persians, and the several other peoples that belonged to their
empire. The hundreds of independent city-states that called themselves
Hellene
or parts of
Hellas
(‘Greek’ and ‘Greece’ are exact translations)
differentiated themselves from barbarians by their shared language, shared
religion, gods, mythology and certain customs, and their shared ethnic roots
(which were actually not much different from the barbarians’). Nothing if
not thorough, Herodotus goes deep into the mythical past to identify the
original cause of this conflict between Hellenes and barbarians, and traces it
back to the war with Troy. In fact, at the time of the Trojan War, the forebears
of the Persians were an insignificant people in the midst of the cluster of
fabulous civilizations that had existed in the Middle East since the 3rd
millennium
BC
. If the Greek invasion of the Troad offended any superpower,
it would have been the Hittites. However, the Persians’ Achaemenid Empire,
which absorbed those civilizations, was to last over two centuries from
550
BC
, when Cyrus the Great conquered the Medes, the Persians’ former
overlords, until its destruction by Alexander the Great in 330
BC
. It was at
war with Hellas soon after it came into being.
The Median Empire included half of Assyria (northern Iraq) and Cyrus
pushed north from there into Cappadocia (north central Turkey). This empire
now bordered the large, militarily powerful and wealthy kingdom of Lydia to
the west, a civilization with both Greek and Asian roots. In 547/46
BC
,
Croesus, king of Lydia, launched an attack on the Persians by crossing the
Halys River into Cappadocia. He led his army back to Sardis, the capital of
Lydia, after an inconclusive battle at Pteria and disbanded it for the coming
winter. At Pteria we simply learn that ‘combat was fierce and many fell on
each side, ending only when night came with neither side gaining victory’.
Croesus did not expect Cyrus to invade Lydia in return because his army had
held its own against a considerably larger Persian force. However, he planned
to call on his allies to join him in raising a much larger army to take on the
Persians again the following year. Cyrus anticipated this strategy, and paying
5
OPPOSITE
A crudely energetic white-
ground
lekythos
(funerary olive
oil jar) graphically illustrating
the advantages of the Greek
hoplite over the more lightly
armed barbarian infantryman.
His shield, helmet and body
armour have brought him
safely through the arrow storm,
and his heavy spear is driving
into his opponent’s
unprotected head. National
Archaeological Museum,
Athens. (Ancient Art &
Architecture)
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com

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