Plataea Sentence Examples

Two other passes, farther to the west, were crossed by the roads from Plataea to Athens and to Megara respectively.

He invaded Attica at the head of the Peloponnesian forces in the summers of 43 1, 430 and 428, and in 42 9 conducted operations against Plataea.

At Pellene in Achaea, and at Plataea he made two other statues of Athena, also a statue of Aphrodite in ivory and gold for the people of Elis.

During the Persian invasion of 480 the Phocians at first joined in the national defence, but by their irresolute conduct at Thermopylae lost that position for the Greeks; in the campaign of Plataea they were enrolled on the Persian side.

In addition to researches at Sicyon, Plataea, Eretria and elsewhere, it has undertaken two works of capital importance - the excavation of the Argive Heraeum and of ancient Corinth.

In 479 he was re-elected strategus, and invested with special powers as commander of the Athenian contingent at Plataea; he is also said to have judiciously suppressed a conspiracy among some oligarchic malcontents in the army, and to have played a prominent part in arranging for the celebration of the victory.

The fullest description of such a festival is the account given by Plutarch (Aristides, 21) of the festival celebrated by the Plataeans in honour of their countrymen who had fallen at the battle of Plataea.

It was said to have been founded by Megarians and Argives under Byzas about 6S7 B.C., but the original settlement having been destroyed in the reign of Darius Hystaspes by the satrap Otanes, it was recolonized by the Spartan Pausanias, who wrested it from the Medes after the battle of Plataea (479 B.C.) - a circumstance which led several ancient chroniclers to ascribe its foundation to him.

Pausanias, the victor of Plataea, soon showed himself destitute of the high qualities which the situation demanded.

The expedition which followed produced negative successes, but the absence of any positive success and the pressure of financial difficulty, coupled with the defection of Jason (probably before 37 1), and the high-handed action of Thebes in destroying Plataea (373), induced Athens to renew the peace with Sparta which Timotheus had broken.

Cornelius Sulla for the payment of his soldiers; Nero removed no fewer than 500 bronze statues from the sacred precincts; Constantine the Great enriched his new city by the sacred tripod and its support of intertwined snakes dedicated by the Greek cities after the battle of Plataea.

During the Persian invasion the Tegeans displayed a readiness unusual among Peloponnesian cities; in the battle of Plataea they were the first to enter the enemy's camp. A few years later they headed an Arcadian and Argive league against Sparta, but by the loss of two pitched battles (Tegea and Dipaea) were induced to resume their former loyalty (about 468-467).

The Mycenaeans, who had temporarily regained their independence with the help of Sparta, fought on the Greek side at Plataea in 479 B.C. The long warfare between the two cities lasted till 468 B.C., when Mycenae was dismantled and its inhabitants dispersed.

After the Spartan defeat of Argos in 494 B.C. Tiryns regained temporary independence, and the Tirynthians fought on the OI Greek side at Plataea, while the Argives held aloof.

About 519 the resistance of Plataea to the federating policy of Thebes led to the interference of Athens on behalf of the former; on this occasion, and again in 507, the Athenians defeated the Boeotian levy.

In the Peloponnesian War the Boeotians, embittered by the early conflicts round Plataea, fought zealously against Athens.

The speech Against Pancleon illustrates the intimate relations between Athens and Plataea, while it gives us some picturesque glimpses of Athenian town life.

This might have been urged with justice before the Thirty Years' Truce (447); but by that truce Athens gave up all her conquests in Greece proper except Naupactus and Plataea, while her solitary gains in Amphipolis and Thurii were compensated by other losses.

Before anything could come of this proposal, matters were precipitated (end of March 431) by the attack of Thebes upon Plataea (q.v.), which immediately sought and obtained the aid of Athens.

In 429 the Peloponnesians were deterred by the plague from invading Attica and laid siege to Plataea in the interests of Thebes.

In the Daedala, as the festival was called at Plataea, an effigy was made from an oak-tree, dressed in bridal attire, and carried in a cart with a woman who acted as bridesmaid.

This last burden grew heavier as time went on; 5000 Spartiates and s000 perioec hoplites fought at Plataea in 479 B.C., but the steady decrease in the number of the Spartiates necessitated the increasing employment of the perioeci.

Ninety years after Salamis and Plataea, the goal for which Xerxes had striven was actually attained, and the kings will was law in Greece.

In the late 6th century the Thebans were brought for the first time into hostile contact with the Athenians, who helped the small fortress of Plataea to maintain its independence against them, and in 506 repelled an inroad into Attica.

Though a contingent of 700 was sent to Thermopylae and remained there with Leonidas to the end, the governing aristocracy soon after joined the enemy with great readiness and fought zealously on his behalf at the battle of Plataea (479).

In the Peloponnesian War the Thebans, embittered by the support which Athens gave to the smaller Boeotian towns, and especially to Plataea, which they vainly attempted to reduce in 431, were firm allies of Sparta, which in turn helped them to besiege Plataea and allowed them to destroy the town after capture (427).

Three monuments remain to mark the line of the Spina, around which the chariots whirled; an Egyptian obelisk of Thothmes III., on a pedestal covered with bas-reliefs representing Theodosius I., the empress Galla, and his sons Arcadius and Honorius, presiding at scenes in the Hippodrome; the triple serpent column, which stood originally at Delphi, to commemorate the victory of Plataea 479 B.C.; a lofty pile of masonry, built in the form of an obelisk, and once covered with plates of gilded bronze.

The remaining inhabitants, after seeing their city burnt down by Xerxes, furnished a force of 1800 men to the confederate Greek army at Plataea.

Three roads lead to Athens from the Boeotian frontier over the intervening mountain barrier - the easternmost over Parnes, from Delium and Oropus by Decelea, which was the usual route of the invading Lacedaemonians during the Peloponnesian War; the westernmost over Cithaeron, by the pass of Dryoscephalae, or the "Oakheads," leading from Thebes by Plataea to Eleusis, and so to Athens, which we hear of in connexion with the battle of Plataea, and with the escape of the Plataeans at the time of the siege of that city in the Peloponnesian War; the third, midway between the two, by the pass of Phyle, near the summit of which, on a rugged height overlooking the Athenian plain, is the fort occupied by Thrasybulus in the days of the Thirty Tyrants.

In the grasp of a more inexorable necessity, the champion of Greek freedom was borne onward to a more tremendous catastrophe than that which strewed the waters of Salamis with Persian wrecks and the field of Plataea with Persian dead; but to him, at least, it was given to proclaim aloud the clear and sure foreboding that filled his soul, to do all that true heart and free hand could do for his cause, and, though not to save, yet to encourage, to console and to ennoble.

Scythian envoys sought her aid to stem the invasion of Darius; to her the Greeks of Asia Minor appealed to withstand the Persian advance and to aid the Ionian revolt; Plataea asked for her protection; Megara acknowledged her supremacy; and at the time of the Persian invasion under Xerxes no state questioned her right to lead the Greek forces on land and sea.

Sparta felt that an effort was necessary to recover her position, and Pausanias, the victor of Plataea, was sent out as admiral of the Greek fleet.

For other fragments and their localities see Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (iii., 1873, pp. 801 and 1055; and supplement i., 1893, p. 1909); special mention may be made of those of Elatea, Plataea and Megalopolis.

Plataea is situated on the north slope of the mountain, and the strategy of the battle of 479 B.C. was considerably affected by the fact that it was necessary for the Greeks to keep their communications open by the passes (see PLATAEA).

Though the traditional account of this war exaggerates the services of Athens as compared with the other champions of Greek independence, there can be no doubt that the ultimate victory was chiefly due to the numbers and efficiency of the Athenian fleet, and to the wise policy of her great statesman Themistocles (see Salamis, Plataea).

Perhaps the most important of early Greek works in cast bronze, both from its size and great historical interest, is the bronze pillar (now in the Hippodrome at Constantinople) which was erected to commemorate the victory of the allied Greek states over the Persians at Plataea in 479 B.C. (see Newton's Travels in the Levant).

On the fields of Marathon and Plataea, the Persian archers succumbed to the Greek phalarn of hoplites; but the actual decision was effected by Themistocles who had meanwhile created the Athenian fleet which at Salamis proved its superiority over the Perso-Phoenician armada, anc thus precluded beforehand the success of the land-forces.

The tomb dates from the 5th century B.C., and is probably that of the Thespians who fell at Plataea, for those who fell at Thermopylae were buried on the field.