battle of Plataea

In an attempt to regain his name, Aristodemus conducts a suicidal charge at the final battle of Plataea. He fought in an uncontrolled fashion and with such undisciplined fury, that the Spartans never awarded him for valor because his actions were contrary to the disciplined Spartan culture.

(7) The victorious land battle of Plataea, which marked the end of the Persian Wars in the aftermath of Salamis, has often been relegated to the realm of a "mop-up" operation.

Set pieces include a Spartan king refusing to prostrate himself before the Great King--he gives him a curt nod instead--the heroic stand of Leonidas and the Spartans at Thermopylae and the Greek defeat of the Persians at the battle of Plataea. The elder brother dies bravely at Plataea and the younger survives to become a leader of the helots.

On the eve of the Battle of Plataea, the Spartans expressed fear that the citizens of Athens, their allies of the moment, would come to terms with the Persians.

In 479 bc the Greeks won a complete victory in the battle of Plataea. Further battles were fought during the next thirty years, but the Greeks had assumed the aggressive position.