The Battle That Saved Greece — Plataea (479 BCE)

PART 2:

A wounded messenger breaks from the  line and runs toward the Athenians.  “We need archers!” Athenian archers move   forward to stabilize the flank. Soon the entire sector disappears   into noise and dust. Persian cavalry circling.  Greek arrows returning fire. Men shouting through clouds   of dirt kicked up by horses.

 And in the middle of the chaos,   a Persian commander named Masistius  rides too close to the line.  An arrow strikes his horse. The animal rears violently   and throws him into the ground. Greek soldiers rush him before   he can stand properly. Masistius fights back hard.  Several blows glance off his  armor without killing him.  The Greeks crowd tighter around him. 

One soldier finally drives a spear  through a gap beneath the scale armor.  Masistius collapses. And for a moment, the fighting slows. Persian cavalry begins  pulling back from the ridge. The death of one of their most respected  commanders sends a visible shock through the line. Across the Greek position,  the reaction is immediate.

Shields slam against spears. Men shouting in celebration. For the first time at Plataea, the Greeks have  proof that Persian cavalry can be resisted. But from the camp, Mardonius remains calm. Because tactically, very little has changed. The Greeks still hold the ridge. Still depend on vulnerable supply lines.

Still cannot safely descend onto the plain. And the longer they remain there — the more the battlefield  continues to favor Persia. After the death of Masistius, the  battlefield settles into a tense silence.  Neither army attacks. The Greeks remain on the ridge.  The Persians hold the plain below.

 An officer studying the ridge   beside Mardonius says quietly: “They still won’t come down.”  “Then we make sure they can’t stay there.” Then the cavalry starts appearing everywhere.  Not in one great assault. In small groups.  Along roads. Near supply routes.  Around the edges of the Greek position. The cavalry stops hunting only soldiers. 

Now it starts hunting wagons. A supply convoy moving through   the passes of Cithaeron suddenly comes  under attack before reaching the camp.  Mules collapse under arrows. Wagons overturn in the road.  Drivers abandon supplies and flee into the hills. From the ridge, Greek soldiers watch   smoke rising in the distance. Then messengers start disappearing. 

Foraging parties stop returning. Every road below the ridge now has   Persian cavalry somewhere on it. And eventually the pressure   reaches the Gargaphia spring. At dawn, a group of Greek soldiers   arrives carrying water jars. Then they stop.  Persian horsemen are already inside the spring. Horses trampling through the water. 

Archers watching the approaches. Mud spreading through the basin.  One of the Greeks stares  at the spring for a moment.  Then turns back toward the ridge. “We can’t use it.”  By now the army has been under pressure for days.  Little water. Failing supplies.  No safe route off the ridge without  crossing ground controlled by cavalry. 

Men are not dying in one catastrophic attack. The position itself is dying.  And everyone in the Greek  camp can feel it happening. That night, Pausanias gathers  the allied commanders.  The atmosphere inside the  council is exhausted and tense.  Officers arrive carrying reports from the roads.

 Others still covered in dust from cavalry attacks   near the spring. “There’s no water   left on the ridge,” one commander says. “And every road below us belongs to Persian   cavalry,” another answers. No one argues.  Outside the tent, thousands of soldiers  are already sitting thirsty in darkness.  Pausanias studies the map spread across the table. Then points south toward Plataea. 

“We move here. Near the island.  Better ground. Better water.”  Aristides nods once. “It keeps the army together.”  “Then we move tonight.” The decision spreads through   the camp almost at once. Pack the lines.  Quiet the fires. Prepare to withdraw before dawn.  “This is not retreat,” “We fight again tomorrow.

” But even he understands how dangerous this   movement is about to become. This is not one army.  It is Spartans. Athenians.  Corinthians. Megarians.  Dozens of contingents with different  officers and different instincts.  And now all of them have to move silently across  open ground in darkness while Persian cavalry   waits somewhere beyond the ridge. One delayed column. 

One wrong turn. One unit losing contact in the dark—  and the entire line could  come apart before morning.  Still, the order goes out. Move tonight. The withdrawal begins after midnight. The center moves first.  Torches disappear into the darkness below the  ridge as thousands of men begin marching south. 

At first the movement stays organized. Then the line starts drifting.  The center keeps marching farther than it  is supposed to — past the regroup point,   past the fallback position, all  the way toward Plataea itself.  Messengers sent to stop the movement  struggle to find the columns in the dark.  By the time anyone realizes what  is happening, the center is already   scattered and out of contact with both wings.

 On the left, the Athenians stand waiting for   orders that arrive late or contradict each other. Some units begin moving.  Others stop completely. Officers argue quietly beside   the road while men wait in formation  not knowing whether to march or stay.  And on the Spartan right, the  withdrawal suddenly freezes altogether.  Because a Spartan commander,  Amompharetus, refuses to move. 

Pausanias rides to him directly. “We withdraw now.”  “Spartans do not retreat from the enemy.” “This is not retreat.”  Amompharetus points back toward the  Persian campfires burning across the plain.  “We hold the line.” Time disappears while they argue.  Behind them, the rest of the Greek army  is already drifting apart in darkness. 

Eventually Pausanias gives the order for  the Spartan column to move without him,   hoping Amompharetus will follow  once the line begins leaving.  At the last possible moment, he finally does. Almost too late.  By the hour before dawn, nobody on the  ridge can see the full Greek line anymore.  The center has marched too far south. The Athenians are stalled. 

The Spartan right is moving  separately across the plain.  And from the Persian camp, the  movement looks exactly like collapse. At sunrise, Persian scouts  arrive almost immediately.  “The ridge is empty.” “What?”  Mardonius rides forward to see it himself.

 The Greek position that held for eleven days   is breaking apart across the plain. Dust rising from moving columns.  Units no longer aligned with each other. An officer beside him smiles.  “They’re retreating.” For days, the seers   had warned against a direct attack. Every morning the answer had been the same:  Wait. One of the officers reminds him carefully. 

“The omens still warn against pursuit.” But Mardonius keeps watching the Greek withdrawal.  Then he sees something critical. The Spartans are separated from the Athenians.  The center is nowhere near either wing. The Greek line is no longer a line.  He makes the decision instantly. “They’re breaking. Advance.

”  The cavalry moves first. Not probing anymore.  Charging. Horsemen race across the plain trying to reach the   Spartan column before it can reform near Plataea. Behind them, the Persian infantry begins moving   forward at once. Persians.  Medes. Bactrians.  Thousands of men descending  across the field together. 

For eleven days the battle had been pressure. Now suddenly it becomes pursuit.  And across the Persian line, men begin shouting  to each other that the Greeks are finally running. As the Persian advance accelerates,  Aristides sends forces toward the Spartans.  “Move right. Support the Spartan line.

” The Athenians begin crossing   the plain immediately. Then shapes begin emerging through the dust ahead.  Rows of shields. Greek armor.  Theban banners. The Athenians stop.  One officer stares across the field toward  the Spartan position far to the west.  “We’re cut off.” The Thebans keep advancing.  Not a screening force.

 An entire line of Boeotian and pro-Persian   Greek infantry moving to block the crossing. The Athenians turn to face them.  And suddenly Plataea becomes two separate  battles happening at the same time.  On the right, Spartans and Tegeans are absorbing  the full weight of the Persian advance alone.  On the left, Athenians crash into Theban  hoplites trying to pin them in place   before they can reinforce Sparta. Dust now covers most of the plain. 

Neither wing can clearly see the other anymore.  Messengers trying to cross the  battlefield disappear into the fighting.  No one knows which side is winning. No one knows who is still holding.  The Greek alliance that arrived together is now  fighting in fragments across miles of battlefield. As the infantry formed behind the wicker  shields, the cavalry withdrew from the front,   giving way to the archers’ volleys.

 On the Spartan right,   the pressure becomes unbearable. Arrows fall continuously into   the Spartan and Tegean formations. Men are hit while standing still.  Shields crack under impact. Persian cavalry threatens the flanks,   while archers behind wicker shields  pour arrows into the Spartan line.  Pausanias still does not order the advance.

 Near the rear of the formation, sacrifices   are performed again and again. The signs remain unfavorable.  Another volley slams into the line. The Spartans hold position.  Bleeding. Waiting.  Holding shields over their heads while  Persian arrows continue falling around them.  Then the Tegeans begin moving forward. Charging.  One Spartan turns and sees the Tegean line already  stepping toward the Persians without the signal. 

At almost the same moment, Pausanias  performs another sacrifice.  This time the omens change. The order finally comes.  The Spartan line surges forward. Not sprinting.  Not screaming. A controlled wall of bronze and shields   driving across the last stretch of open ground.

 Persian archers keep firing until the Spartans   are too close to draw properly. Then the distance disappears.  Shields collide. Spears punch into packed formations.  Broken shafts vanish beneath pushing bodies. Now men are fighting face-to-face in dust so thick   entire sections of the battle disappear inside it. The Persian line bends backward.  Men keep fighting even as the front  ranks begin dying where they stand. 

Still the Spartans keep pushing. Step by step.  Driving the Persian center  backward across the plain. In the center of the fighting, one  figure keeps appearing through the dust.  A black horse. Mardonius.  He is close enough to the front  that Persian troops can still see   him directing the battle in person.

 The fighting around him becomes some   of the hardest on the field. Spartans pressing forward.  Persian guards trying to hold the center together.  Then suddenly the black horse disappears. At first almost nobody understands what happened.  But the reaction spreads quickly. Mardonius fell.  Units near the center begin slowing.

 Some Persian soldiers start looking   backward toward the camp instead  of forward toward the Spartans.  Officers begin shouting conflicting orders. The line starts losing shape.  What had been a steady Persian advance  begins folding backward in sections.  At the same time, on the opposite side of the  battlefield, the Athenians are still fully engaged   with the Thebans and Boeotians. The fighting there is brutal. 

Shield against shield. Greek against Greek.  Neither side breaks for a long time. Then gaps begin opening in the Theban line.  A few men fall back. Then more.  Soon entire sections are retreating toward Thebes. And almost simultaneously, both Greek   wings begin pushing forward at once. The Spartans break the Persian center. 

The Athenians break the force  trying to hold them in place.  Only now does the battlefield begin  turning from survival into victory. The surviving Persian troops  run for the fortified camp.  Thousands of men pour through  the entrances almost at once.  Inside the enclosure, officers try desperately  to reform units behind the walls and wagons. 

For a moment, the defenses hold. The Spartans reach the perimeter   first but struggle to force  their way through the barricades.  Projectiles continue flying from inside the camp. Then shouting erupts near one section of the wall.  The Tegeans have found a weak point. Wood splinters.  Part of the barricade collapses inward. 

Greek troops begin forcing  their way through the opening.  The fighting spills inside immediately. Now the enclosure becomes chaos.  There is almost no room to maneuver. Persian soldiers trying to retreat   crash into troops still trying to fight. Men are trapped between wagons, walls,   and bodies with nowhere left to move.

 Then the Athenians arrive at another   section of the perimeter and  break in from a second direction.  Panic starts spreading through the camp. Some Persian troops keep fighting.  Others try climbing over the barricades to escape. Many are simply crushed inside the enclosure as   the Greek attack closes from multiple sides.

 What began before dawn as a Persian pursuit   of a fractured Greek withdrawal ends  before sunset in the destruction of   the largest Persian army left in Greece. The Spartan line breaks the Persian center.  The Tegeans open the camp. The Athenians help finish   the collapse inside the enclosure. And with that, the invasion dies.  Persia remains one of the most  powerful empires in the world.