Battle of Plataea

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The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in August 479 BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an Achaemenid army led by Mardonius (allied with Boeotia, Thessaly, and Macedon) and the Spartan-led Hellenic alliance including Athens, Corinth, Tegea, Megara and other city-states. At the preceding Battle of Salamis, the allied Greek navy had won an unlikely but decisive victory, preventing the conquest of the Peloponnese region. Xerxes then retreated with much of his army, leaving his general Mardonius to finish off the Greeks the following year. In the summer of 479 BC, the Greeks assembled a huge army and marched out of the Peloponnese. The Persians retreated to Boeotia and built a fortified camp near Plataea. The Greeks, however, refused to be drawn into the prime terrain for cavalry around the Persian camp, resulting in a stalemate that lasted eleven days. While attempting a retreat after their supply...

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